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MEMOIR OF THE LIFE 



OF 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, 

MEMBER OF CONGRESS IN 1774, 1775, AND 1776 ; 

DELEGATE TO THE FEDERAL CONVENTION IN 1787, AND 

GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW-JERSEY 

FROM 1776 TO 1790. 



EXTRACTS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE, AND NOTICES OF 
VARIOUS MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY. 



" Civis, senator, marit'is, gener, amicus, cunctis vitae officiis equabilis, 
opum contemptor, recti pervicax, constans adversus metus." 

Tac. Hist. iv. 5. 



BY THEODORE SEDGWICK, JUN. 



NEW-YORK: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. & J, HARPEK, 
82 CLIFF-STREET. 

183 3. 



ir- 



-302 






[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by J. & J.Harper, 
in the office of the Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.] 



TO WILLIAM JAY, ESQ. 

OF BEDFORD, NEW-YOKE. 



In placing your name, my dear sir, upon the dedication- 
page of this memoir of your maternal grandfather, no one, 
I hope, will attribute to me the intention of rendering you 
responsible, even in a remote degree, for the deficiencies, 
perhaps the positive errors, of an early effort. First-fruits 
are not always acceptable offerings. 

I have taken this liberty without your permission, flatter- 
ing myself, at the same time, that whatever reception this 
volume may meet with in the world of critics, and how- 
ever little it may add to the materials of American history, 
you, sir, will appreciate the motives which prompted it, and 
accept without reluctance this trifling tribute of the sincere 
regard and respect with which I am 

Your obliged friend, and 

Most obedient servant, 
Theodore Sedgwick, Jun. 

New-York, 27th January, 1833. 



PREFACE. 



A FEW years after the death of Governor Liv- 
ingston, proposals were issued for the pubHca- 
tion of his works, together with a memoir of his 
Me. The proposition was favourably received 
by the public, and it must be a cause of great 
regret to every person interested in the repu- 
tation of the subject of the following narrative, 
that it was not carried into execution. 

At that time, the proofs of Governor Livingston's 
services, and of the estimation they had procured 
him, might have been collected on every hand. 
Many of his contemporaries, personal friends and 
acquaintance were still alive ; they would naturally 
have taken a strong interest in his memory, and 
from their own familiarity with the important 
occurrences in which he shared, have lent an aid, 
which could not but be valuable, to the circulation 
as well of his works, as of a narrative of his hfe. 
It would then have required little skill to give his 



6 PREFACE. 

essays and other writings a permanent place in 
the early literature of the country, and to frame 
such a memorial of his public career, as should 
have ever afterwards formed an important con- 
stituent of that body of revolutionary biography 
from which are hereafter to be drawn some of the 
most interesting materials of American history. 

The length of time which has now elapsed 
since the death of Governor Livingston, puts the 
first of these undertakings out of the question, and 
renders the second extremely difficult. The con- 
troversial writings of the period preceding, and 
embracing the revolution, are, with a very small 
number of exceptions, already neglected, and any 
effort made at this late date to call the attention 
of the public at large to the claims of a writer, 
whose works originally appeared anonymously, or 
in the perishing periodicals of the day, and which 
have never since been republished in a collected 
form, would be necessarily hopeless. 

The difficulties of composing such a biography 
of Governor Livingston, as will do justice to his 
memory, though not equally increased by the 
lapse of time, are still very material. Leaving out 
of view the almost inevitable dispersion of original 



PREFACE. / 

documents, which has been very much felt in the 
present instance — leaving out of view the loss of 
those characteristic anecdotes, of that famiUar, 
but often most valuable information, which can 
only be gathered from contemporaries, — he who 
attempts to relate the life of any individual, how- 
ever distinguished, at a distant period from that of 
his death, must very sensibly miss that lively 
interest in the subject, only to be felt by those 
who acted with him, and which is one of the 
circumstances most likely to draw the notice of 
the public to the work. 

Posthumous fame often owes much to a happy 
selection of a biographer, and the warm esteem 
and admiration felt by one age, may never, to the 
great injury of a reputation, be transmitted to the 
succeeding generation, solely from the want of 
one, sufficiently able or interested, immediately to 
collect and imbody, in an attractive form, those 
fleeting but conclusive testimonials of worth and 
greatness. 

Labouring under these disadvantages, although 
entertaining a hope that the following pages will 
be found to throw some new light, interesting, if 
not important, upon the early history of the 



8 PREFACE. 

• 

country, the expectations of the author of the 
present memoir are very hmited : but it has been 
considered a task not unworthy the partiahty and 
respect of a descendant, even at this late day, to 
imbody, in a distinct form, such memorials of 
Governor Livingston's public services and private 
character, as may possess some interest for those 
at least who claim a share in his reputation — such 
as may possibly also attract the attention of those 
who wish to obtain a correct idea of the relative 
importance of the men of the revolution, ; 

In collecting the materials of the following 
work, 1 have received from various members and 
connexions of Governor Livingston's family, im- 
portant assistance, for which 1 cannot express too 
strong a sense of obligation. Of the many others 
to whom I stand indebted in a similar manner, I 
should do myself injustice, did 1 not particularly 
mention the kind offices of Mr. Madison and Mr. 
Sparks, Mr. Laurens and Mr. Gilman, of South 
Carolina, and Mr. Carey ; as well as the courtesy 
shown me by our late Secretary of State, and his 
able assistant, Mr. Campbell. Nor can I forget the 
aid furnished by the library of our Historical So- 
ciety, under the auspices of its indefatigable treas- 
urer, without which it would have been impossible 



PREFACE. 9 

to give the work even as much accuracy or com- 
pleteness as it now possesses. 

In printing the documents contained in this 
volume, 1 have intended to follow closely the 
orthography of the originals, where any differ- 
ences from the approved mode of the present day 
are peculiar, either to the time at which they were 
written, or to the individual. The page may have 
a less perfect appearance, but it seems to me 
contrary to the accuracy and truth of history to 
correct errors, which, perhaps, are only made 
such by the lapse of time, and which serve to 
identify either the person or the period. 

When a hundred and fifty pages of this volume 
were printed, 1 was informed, for the first time, that 
a large body of original documents belonging to 
Governor Livingston's correspondence, which had 
escaped my researches, was still preserved. Had 
1 been aware of this at an earlier day, every effort 
would have been tried to obtain them for incorpo- 
ration into this work. But as they are intended 
by their possessor for publication, it has been 
found impossible to make any arrangement to 
this end. As they are said principally to belong 
to a period during which Governor Livingston's 



10 PREFACE. 

letter-books are entire, they can scarcely throw any 
new light upon his services ; but if such materials 
exist, and if they prove in any degree valuable, I 
shall greatly regret the untoward circumstance 
which has deprived this volume of the small merit 
I had hoped it might claim, that of comprising 
the substance of every existing document which 
could illustrate the character or conduct of its 
subject. , 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Origin of the Livingston Family — Robert, first Proprietor of 
the Manor of Livingston, comes to New-York — Joins the Anti- 
Leislerian Party in 1689 — PoUtical Reverses — His Estate 
confiscated in 1702 — Is finally successful — Made Speaker of 
the Assembly in 1718 — Dies — Philip, his Son, second Pro- 
prietor of the Manor --..-. Page 17 

CHAPTER n. 

Birth and Education of William Livingston — He graduates at 
Yale College in 1741 — Commences the Study of the Law — 
Letters — His Marriage — Publishes the poem of Philosophic 
Solitude, in 1747 — Begins to practise as Attorney in 1748 — 
Digests the Laws of the Colony in 1752 — His professional 
Character .._ 45 

CHAPTER HL 

Mr. Livingston edits the Independent Reflector in 1752 — Dissen- 
sions on the Subject of the Charter of King's College — Letter 
relating to the French and Indians — John Morke — Mr. Liv- 
ingston edits the Watch Tower in 1754 — Termination of the 
College Controversy — Death of Mrs. Catharine Livuigston 
in 1756 74 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Livingston publishes an Eulogy of the Rev. Aaron Burr — 
Writes The Review of Military Operations in America — Verses 
— Is returned to the Assembly in 1759 — Cause of Forsey and 
Cunningham. — 1764; Publishes The Sentinel — The Stamp Act 
— Controversy on the Subject of an American Episcopate — 
Mr. Livingston publishes a Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff in 
1767 — Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Cooper — Edits The 
American Whig in 1768-69 — Publishes a Satire upon Lieut. 
Governor Golden — The Moot - =• - - - 113 

CHAPTER V. 

Mr. Livingston removes to Elizabethtown, Nevr-Jersey, in 1772 
— Controversy relating to the Treasurer — He is sent to Con- 
gress in 1774 — His Share in the Proceedings of that Body 165 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Livingston is returned to the second Congress in 1775 — 
His Opinions on the Subject of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence — Is recalled from Congress in June, 1776 — Takes Com- 
mand of the Militia at Elizabethtown as Brigadier-general — 
Letter from Joseph Reed — Battle of Bushwick - - 178 

CHAPTER Vn. 

General Livingston elected Governor of the State of New-Jersey 
in August, 1776 — His Exertions to rouse the People — Battle of 
Trenton — Letter from Lord Stirling — Notices of that Officer's 
Life. — 1777 ; Difficulties of the Government of the State — Let- 
ters from Washington and Putnam — Militia Law — The Coun- 
cil of Safety — Livingston's Hostility to the Tories — Letter from 
Brockholst Livingston — Notices of his Life — Livingston unani- 
mously re-elected Governor in November — Contributes to the 
New-Jersey Gazette, under the signature of Hortentius 204 



CONTENTS. 13 

CHAPTER VIII. 

1778; Letters to, and from, Washington and Laurens — Gov- 
ernor Livingston receives the thanks of Congress for his Ex- 
amination of the Hospitals at Princeton and Trenton — Poetical 
Address to General Washington — Livingston re-elected Gov- 
ernor in November — Letter from the Baron Van Der Ca- 
pellen - - -251 

CHAPTER IX. 

1779 ; Extracts from Governor Livingston's Correspondence — 
February — Attack upon his House — Letters from Hamilton 
and Washington. — 1780, May ; British Orders for capture of 
Governor Livingston — Incursion of the Enemy into New- 
Jersey — Attack upon Livingston's House — His insufficient 
Salary — Letters - - - - - - -318 

CHAPTER X. 

1781, Jan. ; Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line — Sacrifice of Land 
in Vermont — Conduct of Governor Livingston, and Letters on 
the subject of Passes. — 1782 ; Letter from Sir Guy Carleton : 
from Jefferson. — 1783 ; Peace — Returns to Elizabethtown 359 

CHAPTER XL 

Definitive Treaty of Peace — Governor Livingston nominated 
Commissioner to erect the Federal Buildings — Chosen Minis- 
ter to Holland — Declines — Letters on the Subject of Slavery 
— Livingston elected Delegate to the Federal Convention — 
Matthew Ridley — Disputes between the American Ministers 
in France in 1782 382 

CHAPTER XH. 

1787 ; Livingston attends the Federal Convention — His Share in 
the proceedings of that Body — Ratification of the Constitution 



14 CONTENTS. 

— Letter from Robert R. Livingston — Notices of him — Let- 
ter from Hamilton — Livingston receives Degree of LL.D. — 
Letter from Benjamin Harrison — Death of Mrs. Livingston — 
Livingston elected Governor for the last time — Dies, July 
1790— His Character 416 



A 



MEMOIR OF THE LIFE 



OF 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 



THE 

LIFE 

OF 

WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Origin of the Livingston Family — Robert, first Proprietor of 
the Manor of Livingston, comes to New-York — Joins the Anti- 
Leislerian Party in 1689 — Political Reverses — His Estate 
confiscated in 1702 — Is finally successful — Made Speaker of 
the Assembly in 1718 — Dies — Philip, his Son, second Pro- 
prietor of the Manor. 

The family to which the subject of the follow- 
ing Memoir belongs, although not originally estab- 
lished in North America until more than half a 
century after its colonial settlement, is at present 
one of the most widely extended which the coun- 
try contains; and through its different members, 
the name has acquired a reputation worthy of its 
numerous branches. 

The first of the family who came to this country 
was one of the most eminent of the early inhabit- 
ants of the province of New- York, and the large 
entailed estates which he left to his descendants 
carried with them, until the time of the Revolution, 
influence and importance. Since the fortunate 



18 THE LIFE OF 

period of the abolition of all hereditary and ex- 
clusive privileges, the weight of rank and wealth 
has been well exchanged for the more desirable, 
but less easily acquired power derived from char- 
acter and talent. 

The name of Livingston is attached to the 
Declaration of Independence and to the Federal 
Constitution ; it is honorably associated with our 
foreign diplomacy, our domestic politics, and our 
judicial history, and there has been perhaps no 
time in our annals when its respectability has not 
been supported by some conspicuous individual. 
It is at present borne by one who, as a legislator, 
a jurist, and a statesman, has increased the reputa- 
tion it had previously acquired.* 

I have spoken of the first of the family of Living- 
ston who came to this country, the grand parent of 
tl ■> subject of the present narrative; and as there 
iSj, JO where to be found any connected sketch of 
his life, a short space will be here allotted to such 
a narrative of his history as may be found inter- 
esting, at least to the large circle of those who draw 
their descent from him — such as, from its connexion 
with our early colonial annals, may perhaps not 
prove altogether tedious to the general reader. 

Robert Livingston, son of John Livingstone, 
eminent in Scottish church history, and Barbara 
Fleming, was born at Ancram, a village on the 

* The names of Robert, Philip, William, Robert R., and Ed- 
ward Livingston free the text from all imputation of panegyric. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 19 

Teviot, in Roxburghshire, Scotland, on the 13th 
December, 1654, while his father was a minister 
of that parish.* 

* I here subjoin some particulars respecting the father and 
more remote ancestors of the first American Livingston, which, 
though they have no immediate connexion with the text, may 
nevertheless prove not unacceptable to the few persons curious 
in such matters. 

The ancient and distinguished Scottish familj^ of Livingstone, 
or, as the name is now written, Livingston, is said to derive its 
origin from an Hungarian gentleman of the name of Livingius 
(vid. Anderson's Genealogies), who accompanied Margaret, the 
sister of Edgar Atheling, and wife of King Malcolm Canmore, from 
his native country to Scotland, about the period of the Norman 
conquest. In the reign of David the First of Scotland (1124- 
1153), says a tradition, which seems not to pay a scrupulous 
regard to the usual duration of human existence, this same 
individual received a grant of lands in West Lothian, which was 
created a barony, and named after the proprietor. This estate 
was transmitted through his descendants for nearly four hui :^d 
years, when in the reign of James IV. (1488-1513) Bartholoi 'W 
Livingston dying without issue, the direct line became extinct. '" 

A collateral branch had however in the mean time acquired 
wealth and consequence, and it is from this that the Earls of 
Linlithgow in Scotland, and the Livingstons of America are 
descended. ~ In the reign of David IL (1329-1370), Sir William 
Livingstone, Kt., marrying Christian, daughter and heir to Patrick 
de Calendar, Lord of Calendar, in the county of Stirling, received 
that barony with her. His grandson John had, besides his eldest 
son Alexander, two others, Robert, the ancestor of the Earls of 
Newburgh, a title illustrated by " Granville's Mira" (see Mrs. 
Jameson's Loves of the Poets, from the exquisite taste and fancy 
of which, I wish it were permitted to borrow somewhat to enliven 
the barrenness of my subject), and William, progenitor of the 
Viscounts of Kilsyth. 



20 THE ^IFE OF 

It is not unreasonable to infer, from Livingston's 
knowledge of the Dutch language, that he accom- 
panied his father in his flight to Holland shortly 
after the restoration of Charles II. If this be so, his 



The article in Nichol's British Compendium (2d Ed. Lond. 
1725), from which this account is so far drawn, is got up with a 
considerable show of accuracy, and was perhaps compiled from 
the traditions communicated to the editor by some member of the 
family. History steps in, to lend us, descending from this period, 
her less doubtful aid. Sir Alexander Livingstone, of Calendar, 
just mentioned, was in 1437, on the death of James I., appointed 
by the estates of the kingdom joint regent with Crichton, during 
the minority of James II. He not long after (vid. Aikman's 
Buchanan, ii. 117) yielded to the formidable power of the young 
Earl of Douglas, his property was confiscated (but subsequently 
restored), and his son brought to the block. His other son, 
James, who succeeded liis father in the barony of Calendar, was 
created Lord Livingston. He died in 1467. The lordship of 
Livingston appears to have been one of the more important barbn- 
ies. In the list of members of the Scottish parliament for the 
year 1560, 1 find the name of Livingston, and this is the parlia- 
ment which, upon petition, admitted the lesser barons to the 
privilege of voting, which they had not before enjoyed. (Robert- 
son's Hist. App.) 

William, the great-grandson of the last-mentioned James, and 
fourth Lord Livingston, married Agnes, daughter of Sir Patrick 
Hepburn, of Waughtenn, or Patrick Lord Hales [perhaps the 
same individual is meant by these diflferent appellations], and 
from him the Livingstons of this country are descended, through 
his second son Robert, who was slain at the battle of Pinkie- 
field. Alexander, his eldest son, succeeded to the title, and it is 
his daughter who was one of the " four Maries" that accompanied 
the Scottish queen to the French court (vid. Chalmer's Hist., 
and Mrs. Jameson's Cel. Fem. Sov.) : — 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 21 

selection of a residence in the New World may be 
easily accounted for by the connexions formed in the 
old. New- York, though no longer a Dutch colony, 
was still an object of interest and affection to the 

Last night the queen had four Maries, 
To-night she'll hae but three ; 
There was Mary Seaton, and Mary Beaton, 
And Mary Livingstone and me. 

In the person of Alexander, the seventh lord, the barony was 
exchanged for an earldom, he being in 1600 created by James 
VI. Earl of LinUthgow. The title in full ran thus : " Earl of 
Linlithgow, Lord Livingston of Almont, hereditary keeper of the 
King's Castle at Linlithgow, hereditary Bailiff of the Bailiwick 
there belonging to the Crown, hereditary Sheriff of the Comity 
of Stirling, and hereditary Governor of Blackness." The second 
son of the first Earl of Linlithgow was created Earl of Calendar, 
which title finally fell into the former, in the person of its last 
possessor. 

The earldom of Linlithgow remained in the family for more 
than a century, and was transmitted through five descendants. 
They distinguished themselves by their grateful attachment to 
the house of Stuart, from whom they had derived their honours, 
they shared their dangers during the civU wars, and were re- 
warded with offices of dignity and consequence when the times 
permitted it. They appear to have been generally in possession 
of some considerable civil or military post, and the name repeat- 
edly occurs on the list of the privy coimcil. The head of the 
family was in arms with Dundee, in 1688-9, and the devotion of 
Anne, the daughter of the last earl, to the same cause, resembles 
in its romantic details the events of an earlier date. She is said 
to have brought over her husband, the unfortunate Earl of Kil- 
marnock, to support the interests of the Pretender, and to have 
gained the battle of Falkirk, in 1746, for her party, by using the 
influence of her wit and beauty to detain Hawley at Calendar 
House until too late to take command of his troops. 



22 ' THE ,LIFE OF 

Hollanders, and Livingston possessed peculiar ad- 
vantages in transferring his abode to a province with 
the two principal languages of which he was familiar. 
It is, perhaps, now impossible to discover with 



In the year 1715, James, last Earl of Linlithgow and Calendar, 
who m 1713 was chosen one of the peers of the United King- 
dom, true to his hereditary faith, joined the Earl of Mar. . On 
the failure of that nobleman's enterprise, his title and estates 
were forfeited, together with their attendant rights and privileges. 
This earldom has not, like many of the Scottish peerages, been 
restored. The present heir declines, it is said, the barren and 
expensive honor. 

We now return to WiUiam, the fourth Lord Livingston. His 
second son, Robert, who fell at the battle of Pinkiefield in 1547, 
is, as has been already stated, the reputed ancestor of the family 
in this country. Here occurs one of those tantalizing difficulties 
of so common occurrence in deducing pedigrees — 

" qujBre ex me quis mihi quartus 

Sit pater, haud prompte, dicam tamen, adde etiam unum, 
Unum etiam, terree est jam filius." 

By one statement this Robert is made the grandfather, and by 
another the great-grandfather of John Livingston, the parent of 
the first in America. Be this important question settled as it may, 
— and it seems probable that the second supposition is nearer truth, 
— the individuals intervening between Robert and John appear to 
have been ministers of the Church of Scotland, and to have left 
no more conspicuous memorial of the exercise of their sacred 
functions than may be found in their parish records. With John 
Livingston, however, the case is different. He appears to have 
possessed both power of intellect and vigour of resolution, and 
his name ranks high in the annals of the Scottish Church. 

He was born at Monyabrock, in Stirlingshire, 21st June, 
1603. In the year 1630, while chaplain to the Countess of 
Wigtoun, he delivered at the kirk of Shotts a sermon, where his 



WILLIAM LlVlNGSTO^. 23 

precision the date of his arrival in this country ; 
there is reason to beUeve that it was not long after 
the year 1672, when the death of his father must 
have diminished his inducements to remain in 



eloquence, assisted it may be by the predisposition of his audience, 
produced an extraordinary effect. — (Vide Fleming upon the 
fulfilling of the Scriptures. Ed. 1681, p. 348.) Shortly after 
this he was called to the church of Killinchie, in Ireland. Here 
he was harassed on account of his nonconformity, and desirous 
of enjoying his religion unmolested, he embarked on board a 
vessel bound for the Massachusetts' Bay. Being driven back, 
however, by contrary winds, the resolution was abandoned, and 
in 1638, Livingston was settled at Stranrawer, in Scotland. In 
1648 he removed to Ancram, in Teviotdale, where his son 
Robert was born, by his wife the daughter of Bartholomew 
Fleming, a merchant of Edinburgh. — (Kirkton's History of the 
Church of Scotland, p. 52.) 

In March, 1650, Livingston was sent as a commissioner to 
Breda, to negotiate terms with Charles II. for his return. — (Vide 
Rapm, vol. ii. p. 579; and Whitelock's Memorials, p. 484.) 
After the Restoration, being again persecuted for nonconformity, 
he left his native country, and accompanied, as there is little 
doubt, by his son Robert, established himself at Rotterdam, in 
Holland. Here he began to publish an edition of the Bible, 
which he did not live to complete. He died on the 9th of August, 
1672. I know not whether it is from him that those of the name 
still in Holland draw their origin. 

The Memoirs of John Livingston, written by himself, and 
of which the original MS. is said to have been brought to this 
country by his son (vide Smith, Hist. N. Y. ed. 1814, p. 150, note), 
was publi^ed at Glasgow in 1754 ; but I have in vain endeavoured 
to obtain a printed or manuscript copy of it. Many more details 
of the life of this divine than are here given might be gleaned 
from Woodrow,. Cruikshank, and the other voluminous annal- 
ists of the Church of Scotland. 



24 TH§ LIFE OF 

Europe. He was certainly here, however, as early 
as February, 1676;* at which time we find him 
Secretary to the Commissariest who then superin- 
tended the affairs of " Albany, Schenectade,and the 
parts adjacent," — an office the duties of which could 
not have been discharged without an intimate know- 
ledge of the Dutch and English languages, as the 
Records themselves show. Between the years 1678 
and 1683, and probably about 1679, Mr. Livingston 
married Alida, widow of the Patron Nicholas Van 
Renselaer, daughter of Philip Pieterse Schuyler, 
and sister of Peter Schuyler, distinguished in our 
colonial annals, thus associating himself with two 
of the first families of the province. 

The Record to which I have already referred, 
shows Livingston to have regularly discharged the 
duties of his secretaryship until July, 1686, when 
Albany being made a city, the Board of Commis- 
saries was dissolved. Livingston and his brother- 
in-law, Schuyler, were deputed to receive the 
Charter from Governor Dongan; and the former 
was immediately appointed town-clerk under it. 
The duties of this office probably closely resembled 
those of his previous charge. The reception of 
the charter is thus commemorated in one of the 
early Records of the city of Albany : — 

" In nomine Domino Jesu Christi — Amen. Att a 
meeting of y^ Justices of y^ Peace for y^ county of 

* Vide Records of Common Council of Albany, 
t " Commandeuren Commissarissen." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 25 

Albany, y« 26th day of July, 1686, Pieter Schuyler, 
gent., and Robt. Livingston, gent., who were com- 
missionated by y^ towne of Albanie to goe to 
New-Yorke and procure y^ Charter for this Citty, 
which was agreed upon between y® Magistrates 
and y^ Right Hon. Col. Thos. Dongan, Gov.-Genl., 
who accordingly have brought the same, and was 
pubhshed with all y^ joy and acclamation imagin- 
able; and y^ said two gentlemen received y^ 
thanks of y® Magistrates and Burgesses for their 
diligence and care in obtaining the same." 

■ Before this period, however, Mr. Livingston had 
laid the foundation of the subsequent fortunes of 
Iiimself and his family. The original grant or 
patent by which the large purchases of land which 
he had already made from the Indians were incor- 
porated into the Manor and Lordship of Livingston, 
bears date the 22d of July, 1686. The privileges 
annexed to the grant, at this time, were the holding 
a Court-Leet and a Court-Baron, with the right of 
adVowson of all the churches within its boundaries. 
The tenants were also allowed to choose assessors 
of taxes. The estates which Livingston thus early 
acquired were not, however, to be finally secured 
until after repeated contests with private and 
official enmity ; and a brief account of these con- 
tests, in which his ultimate success was complete, 
will form the principal portion of this section of 
my narrative. 

During the three following years, Livingston 
appears to have resided in Albany, constantly and 



26 THE •life of 

quietly occupied in the discharge of his office, or 
rather offices; for by a later Record we learn 
that, with the customary concentration of labours 
and honours, in a sparse population, where 
both the duties and compensations are triffing, and 
where persons of education are not readily to be 
met with, the place of farmer of the excise was 
annexed to his clerkship. Thus, too, we find that 
Schuyler, on being elected mayor under the new 
charter, was also invested with the dignities of 
" Clerk of the market and Coroner of the city and 
county of Albany." 

In 1689, when the ambition or fidelity of Leisler — 
the imperfect annals of the period permit no other 
than an ambiguous expression — convulsed the pro- 
vince of New-York, and sowed the seeds of private 
animosity and political discord, which lasted, as 
her historian informs us, for nearly three-quarters 
of a century,* Livingston attached himself to the , 
opponents of the self-elected governor — a party 
comprising most of the aristocracy of the colony, 
but who, though finally successful, were at first 
completely overpowered by the vigorous measures 
of their humbler antagonists. The truth about 
Leisler appears to be, and it is made more intel- 
ligible by Coldent than Smith, that the " Dutch 
boor," as he was termed by his haughty opponents, 
supported by the mass of the lower orders, antici- 

* Smith. Ed. 1830, vol. i. p. 97. 
t Hist. Five Ind. Nations. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 27 

pated the aristocracy of the province, who may 
not unreasonably be supposed to have been 
attached to the Tory Regime^ in declaring alle- 
giance to William and Mary. He naturally 
thought that he deserved some reward for his 
loyalty to the revolutionary dynasty; but his an- 
tagonists, although they soon acknowledged the 
new sovereigns, were by no means willing to 
yield the ascendency to a man of low birth and 
inferior talents. This satisfactorily accounts for 
the opposition of the Schuylers, the Bayards, the 
Courtlandts, and the Livingstons. Their opposition 
perhaps drove him into unwarrantable excesses, 
as it certainly led them. His execution was a 
severe, and apparently an unjustifiable measure. 
The continuation of the Leislerian and Anti- 
Leislerian factions, subsequent to this period, is 
rendered intelligible, when we are told that the 
governors fomented the party-spirit with a view 
to their own influence. It may also be said, that 
as far as these factions had any principles of a 
general character that can be traced, the Leis- 
lerians appear to have been the more, and their 
opponents the less, democratic party. 

Upon the overthrow and general disorganization 
of his faction, Livingston took refuge in one of 
the neighbouring provinces, to avoid the active 
pursuit that was made after him, or partly, per- 
haps, as Smith says,* with the design of soliciting 

* Ed. 1830, vol. i. p. 98. 



cr. f 



28 THE i.IFE OF 

aid for tlie protection of the northern frontiers 
of his colony against the French and Indians. 
On the 25th October, 1689, we find Livingston 
acting as secretary to the convention held at 
Albany, which, while it acknowledged the sove- 
reignty of William and Mary, declared itself inde- 
pendent of Leisler. This, connected with his 
prominent situation in that city, was doubtless the 
cause of the indignation of the dominant party, 
but the ostensible reason of the persecution he 
experienced is to be found in a letter preserved in 
the office of the Secretary of this State. It is dated 

i^v*-^**^ Albany, 15th January, 1689-90, and directed to 
!^^^ "Mr. Jacob Milborne, secy, at FfortWilham, in 
New-York." What I have referred to is con- 
tained in the postscript, which runs thus. " About 

LxJiX, fi^O ^^ beginning of April last past, Ro : Livingston 
towld me that there was a plott of robbery gon 
out of Holland into England, and the Prince of 
Orringe was the hed of them, and he might see 
how he got out againe, and should come to the 
same end as Mulmouth (Monmouth) did, this I can 
testify. — Richard Pretty."* 

( A^^i if^fiff In the month of March subsequent to the writing 
of this letter, a warrant reciting the above charge 
was issued by Leisler, for the apprehension of 
Livingston, as " a rebell who, by his rebelliones, 
hath caused great disorder in the county of Al- 
bany, and alsoe in the whole province," and officers 

* Pretty had been Sheriff of Albany in 1687, and was sub- 
sequently reappointed to the same office by Leisler. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 29 

to execute it were despatched both to Hartford 
and Boston. The vahdity of Leisler's order was 
acknowledged by Treat, governor of Connecticut 
(no return appears from Boston), and Livingston's 
safety seems to have been for some time precarious. 
But in this situation, whatever it may have been, he 
did not remain long : on the arrival of Sloughter as 
governor in March, 1691, the short-lived power of 
Leisler came to an end, his adherents were degraded 
and dispersed, and his opponents recalled. This 
commencement of Mr. Livingston's political career 
was not unattended, however, by actual loss as 
well as danger, if we are to suppose that he 
alludes to his sufferings in the Anti-Leislerian 
faction, in a statement laid before the council in 
May, 1692, in which he says "that he has expended 
his whole estate in their Majesties' service." This, 
at any rate, shows the low estimate he made of his 
manor. 

In the autumn of 1694, thinking it necessary to 
go to England to advance his interests at home, 
Livingston resigned the offices which he held at 
Albany, and shortly afterwards sailed on his desti- 
nation. If we may credit the family tradition, his 
voyage was disastrous ; he was shipwrecked on 
the coast of Portugal, and compelled to cross 
Spain and France by land. This anecdote is in 
some measure corroborated by the change in the 
Livingston coat of arms, which have, so far back 
as they can be traced in this country, borne for 
crest, — and it is said that the alteration was made 



30 



THE JLIFE OF 



by him in commemoration of this event, — a ship in 
distress, in heu of the original demi-savage, still 
borne by the family in Scotland. In allusion to 
this incident, it is said also that he changed the 
motto, adopting, instead of that of the Scottish 
family, Si je puis — Spero meliora. 

Livingston probably remained in England little 
f^f^^li«4Mn^more than a year, for in September, 1696, I again 
/900> find him in New-York.* On his return he brought 
with him a nephew, whose name frequently occurs 
on the council minutes as Robert Livingston 
Junior, and who was also the head of a large 
family. This branch was inferior to the elder in 
wealth and consequence, and makes little figure in 
our colonial history. The time passed by Living- 
ston in England was actively spent, and his 
personal sohcitations and representations to those 
who had the direction of colonial affairs, laid the 
foundation as well of his subsequent success, as of 
his immediate misfortunes. He at this time pro- 
^t^^^^%$^^ cured a royal commission, dated 27th January, 
1 7 /6(ia 1695-6, confirming him in the employments of 
collector of the excise, receiver of the quit-rents, 
town clerk, clerk of the peace, and clerk of the 
common pleas, for the city and county of Albany ; 
and, " in consideration of the long and faithful 
services to the crown, for many years past, per- 
formed in all treaties and negotiations with the 
Indians," appointing him secretary or agent of 

* Council minutes in office of Secretary of State, vol. vii. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 31 

the government of New-York in their transactions 
with the native tribes. 

Livingston also embraced this opportunity to 
lay before the privy council an information against 
Fletcher, Governor of New-York, charging him 
with arbitrary exercise of power, an allegation 
fully borne out by history ; and with misapplication 
of the pubhc moneys. At the same time, with the 
activity which evidently formed a prominent con- 
stituent of his character, he procured for Kidd, 
afterwards notorious as a pirate, through the in- 
fluence of the Earl of Bellomont, a commission 
authorizing him to fit out a privateer's-man, for 
the purpose of driving the Bucaneers from the 
Atlantic seas. Kidd, as is well known, betrayed 
his trust, turned Bucaneer himself, and thus 
Livingston nearly became accessory to the over- 
throw of a ministry, and the ruin of the principal 
whigs of the day.* 

The charges exhibited against Fletcher were 
referred by the lords of the privy council to the 
council of New-York, and as the majority of this 
body were usually, and at this time in particular,t 
devoted to the governor, it is scarcely reasonable 
to suppose that they received an impartial con- 

* For a more full account of this transaction and its conse. 
quences, some of which were like to have been sufficiently 
serious, vid. Smith's Hist. N. Y., vol. i. p. 142. Watson's Annals 
of Philad. p. 459. Cobbett's Pari. Deb., vol. v. p. 1258, and 
Burnet's Hist. vol. iii. p. 327. p. 368, et seq. 

t Smith, vol. i. p. 155. 



!i9f 



32 THE^ LIFE OF 

sideration. If this be not so, we must adopt an 
opinion unfavourable both to the justice and sa- 
^^'^^^is S^^^^y ^^ ^^* Livingston, for the accusation was 
(g^fl^i^Afcj disregarded, and the council drew up a report, 
/ Sdi requesting the governor to lay before the king their 
objections to Livingston's exercising the offices 
^,p\ ii under his commission; stating that he was an 
alien born, and at the same time recommending 
that Fletcher should suspend him from the enjoy- 
ment of all his places of profit until the royal 
pleasure might be known.* This took place in 

* The charge of alienism, founded probably on his long 
residence in Holland, Mr. Livingston prepared himself to refute, 
by procuring proof from Scotland ; and a letter written by his 
brother in relation to this subject, may be found not altogether 
uninteresting. The only notice that I have met with of the 
writer, is in Woodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, 
vol. ii. b. 5, anno 1682, where he is spoken of as " son to that 
shining light, Mr. John Livingstone, of Ancram." This letter, as 
I am told, was found by the late General Henry Livingston, 
among some old papers belonging to the family at Ancram, on 
the Hudson River, and is here printed from a copy made in 
1811:— 

" Edinburgh, 13th of December, 1698. 
" Dear Brother, 
" I have yours of the 20th of September last from Ncm'- 
York ; it came to hand with the printed ' Narrative of the Five 
Indian Nations,' then treating with the Earl of Bellomont, your 
Governor, under cover of Mr. Hacksham, the 28th of November, 
for which I am much obliged to you. It was in my last I sent 
to Mr. Hacksham an attestation under the hand and seal of our 
magistrate, of your being a native of this country, but had no 
account from him what use he had made of it. I did then write 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 33 

September, 1696. In April, 1698, Lord Bellomont 
arrived as governor, and from his personal friend- 
ship, or sense of justice, Livingston immediately 
obtained that which his own endeavours had thus 



him yt I purposed to procure your coat-of-arms, and the 
Lyon Heraul's warrant, and your birth-brief; and desyred to 
know if he had effects of yours, yt I might draw for about 7 or 
8/. that I found it would cost ; but had no answer, so have for- 
borne it hitherto ; but have prepared it so far that I find you are 
the son of Mr. John, whose father was Mr. Alexander ; and Mr. 
Alexander, liis father was Robert, who was killed at Pinkiefield 
in 1547, and was brother german to Alexander Lord Livmg- 
ston ; their father was William, the fourth Lord Livingston, and 

the eighth of the house of Callender ; he was married to 

Hepburn, daughter to Sir Patrick Hepburn of Waughtenn ; so 
that your propper coat to be given you is this enclosed, which is 
thus emblazoned; viz. — Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Argent, three 
gilliflowers Gules, slipped propper within a double tressure umber 
florevest, the name of Livingston ; 2(3, quartered first and last 
Gules, a chifron Argent, a role between two lyons counter-ram- 
pant of the field ; 2d and 3d, Argent, three martletts Gules, the 
name of Hepburn of Waughtenn ; 3d quarter Sable, a bend be- 
tween six billets Or, the name of Callender ; your liveries is 
green faced up, wh whytt and red, green and whytt passments. 

" I would cause cutt you a seal with this coat-of-arms, having 
one James Clark, a very honest man, who is graver to our mint- 
house here, and the most dexterous in that art, but could not get 
a steel block to cut upon. 

" There is great alterations among us : my sister Jeanet dyed 
in August, 1696 ; — our brother-in-law, Mr. Russell, came home 
in August, ?97, and was very sicklie; he dyed in Novr. 
after, withom leaving any testament of his will, so that his only 
son James is left as low as any of his daughters ; two of them 
were married in his own tyme, but neither with liis nor my 

£ 



34 THE, LIFE OF 

far failed of effecting. In September, 1698, he was 
called to a seat in the council board, and in the 
autumn of 1700, his commission being confirmed, 
he was permitted to enter upon the discharge of 
his various offices. 

This glimpse of favour was, however, but transi- 



sister's good liking ; but they refused to submit, and accordingly 
were but meanly provided ; the three sisters yt were yet 
unmarried did choose James Dimlip and me curators, but have 
hot taken our counsell upon their marriages, their great tochers 
have made them a prey. He left towards ten thousand pounds 
sterling, but in such confusion yt there will be little credit by 
it. All shall writt more at length. This I send wh some let- 
ters from my brother, direct to Mr. Hacksham. My entire love 
to your second self, and your dear children, and to nephew 
Robert — tell him to writt to me. 

" I am your loving and most affectionate brother, 

" Will. Livingston. ^ 

" I have written to a friend in Linlithgow, and to David 
Jameson, and spoke in full to send attestations of what you 
desyre over to the people you direct, and cxpres thereof to 
yourself." 

There is no reason of which I am aware to question the 
authenticity and general accuracy of the above letter ; but it 
undoubtedly contains genealogical as well as heraldic blunders. 
The former, to which I have already alluded, it might require 
some care to prove ; but the latter may be detected by a refer- 
ence to the second volume of Nichol's British Compendium. 
" Hereof," as Lord Coke has it, when discussing the shield of 
Littleton — " hereof much might be said, but it belongs unto 
others." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 35 

tory. On the death of Lord Bellomont, in March, 
1701, the whole aspect of Livingston's fortunes was 
changed. Nanfan, the heutenant-governor, being 
at this time absent, the council immediately split 
into two factions, which reviving or retaining their 
original designations, termed themselves Leisler- 
ians and Anti-Leislerians. The former insisted 
that the government now of right devolved upon 
the majority of the council, while the others 
maintained that it belonged to Smith, the eldest 
member of the board, as President. The question 
was determined by the House of Assembly, and 
finally by the Lords of Trade, in favour of the former 
party, and Mr. Livingston found, that both in the 
council and the legislature, the feeble minority to 
which he belonged was no longer able to protect 
him against his political antagonists, many of 
whom by his zealous opposition had been made 
personal enemies.* 

The party now in power were not long idle. 
Commissioners had been already appointed to 
examine the accounts of those who had received, 
in the capacity of agents, any of the public moneys, 
and Livingston, as having had in his hands the 
greatest sums, was the first directed to appear 
before them.f He, for some time, refused to obey 
this order, as his accounts and vouchers had been 
in 1698 commanded by Lord Bellomont into his 

* Smith. Ed. 1814, p. 160. 

t Council Minutes, 15th April, 1701, and Journal of N. Y. 
Assembly, 28th Aug. 1701. 



36 



THE^IFE OF 



own possession, from the clerk of the council, and 
could not, as it seems, be obtained from the 
Countess, his widow.* At length, however, in 
comphance with their repeated directions, he 
went before the commissioners, but was, for 
the reasons already mentioned, entirely unable to 
make a satisfactory statement-f The board of 
inquiry reported his excuses frivolous, and re- 
commended to the assembly the confiscation of 
his estate. While this matter was still pending 
[13th Sept.], another charge was raised by the 
commissioners against Livingston, alleging that 
he had privately sohcited the Indians to express 
a desire that he should go to England to advo- 
cate their interests. This accusation, which 
implied a gross departure from his duty as 
government-agent, does not appear to have been 
supported by any proof; for he was called upon to 
clear himself of the charge by oath — " an insolent 
demand," says Smith, " which he rejected with 
disdain." The language of the commissioners' 
report is : " he refiised, saying he thought it not 
worth his while to do the same."J 
- Upon this contumacy, the assembly petitioned 
the lieutenant-governor to advise his majesty to 
remove Livingston from his secretaryship, and in 
the mean time to suspend him from his other 

* Bradfonrs N. Y. Laws, Ed. 1726, p. 318, "An Act to 
repeal an Act," &c. 

t Journ. N. Y. Assemb. 30th Aug. and 1st September, 1701. 
t Journ. Assemb. 13th Sept. 1701, 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 37 

offices ; and proceeding themselves to execute the 
punishment they had so long threatened, an act 
was passed on the 15th September, 1701, entitled 
" An Act to oblige Robert Livingston to account, 
&c."* This law enumerates his various offences, 
makes his property hable to the amount of 
£17,000, and in consideration of "other vast 
sums" received by him, goes on to declare his 
whole estate, real and personal, confiscated by the 
25th of March, 1702, unless he deliver in a full and 
satisfactory account before that time. The days of 
grace expired. Livingston's estate was confiscated, 
an inquest found by the escheator-general of the 
province, and exerting their malice or rigour to 
the utmost, his enemies, on the 27th of April 
following, procured his suspension from the council 
board.t 

Livingston's fortunes were at this time at their 
lowest ebb. Deprived of his estate, the labour of 
thirty years undone, and a stigma branded upon his 
character, it may be considered almost certain that 
had the party, at this time in power, long retained 
their ascendency, the interest attached to his 
name and his misfortunes would have gradually died 
away ; the all-important papers . might have been 
mislaid or destroyed, and the adventurous Scotch- 

* The name is spelled, erroneously, Levingston, throughout this 
act. It may be here mentioned, that at the earliest date at which 
we find the name of this individual written by himself, it is spelled 
as now, Livingston. He dropped the final c used by his father. 

t Council Minutes, vol. viii. 



38 the; life of 

man would have left to his descendants only an 
inheritance of poverty and disgrace. 

The arrival of Lord Cornbury in May, 1702, 
once more changed the scene. That governor 
k2V*cM<^- embraced the cause of th e Leislerians , and this 
I. c /♦-»♦ i determination put an end to the long and harassing 

struggles of Mr. Livingston. His vouchers and 
other papers were immediately commanded from 
the Countess Bellomont.* On the 18th June 
they were submitted to a committee for examina- 
tion, and on the 2d Feb. 1703, being found satis- 
factory, his estates were restored.! In September, 
1705, he received from Queen Anne a commission, 
to obtain which it is uncertain whether he did not 
again go to England, reinstating him in all his 
former appointments.^ 

After this period, we for some time do not meet 
with any notices of Mr. Livingston, and there is no 
reason to doubt that he remained quietly occupied 
in the discharge of the various offices of which he 
was now in the secure possession. His residence 
during this period it is difficult to ascertain. It is 
said that he built a house for his own use on his 
estate, as early as 1692. He certainly resided 
there in 1711.|| 

In the year 1715, the grant of Livingston's 

* Bradford's N. Y. Laws. Ed. 1726, p. 318. 
t Council Mill. vol. ix. 12th Nov. 1702. 
t C. M. vol. X. 3d Oct. 1706. 

U Vid. Letters to George Clarke,— on file in the office of the 
Secretary of this State. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 39 

manor was confirmed by the royal authority, and 
tiie additional privileges of electing a representa- 
tive to the General Assembly of the colony, and 
two constables, were conferred upon the tenants. 
The advantage in effect resulted to their lord ; and 
this manor, till the revolution, belonged strictly to 
that pernicious class of institutions, close boroughs, 
which gave way with us instantly before the equal 
influences of republicanism ; but which, from the 
more congenial soil of England, half a century 
has hardly extirpated. 

Of the manors created in the province of New- 
York, the principal of which were those of Ren- 
selaer, Livingston, Courtlandt, Philipsburg, and 
Beekman, that of Livingston was, with the excep- 
tion of the first, the largest, though not compara- 
tively the richest or most valuable. It originally 
comprised between one hundred and twenty and 
one hundred and fifty thousand acres, commencing 
about five miles south of where the city of Hudson 
now stands, running twelve miles on the Hudson 
river, extending back to the fine of Massachusetts, 
and widening as it receded from the river, so as to 
embrace not far from twenty miles on the boundary 
of the latter colony. Five or six thousand acres 
were taken from it as a settlement for the Palatines 
who came out with Governor Hunter, in 1710, and 
called German-Town. This purchase was, it is 
said, made by the crown for the sum of two 
hundred pounds sterling, which, if it may be con- 



40 the; life of 

sidered as an average price, though as the result 
of a government transaction it was probably a 
high one, gives the whole manor a value of 
between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars. 
This is to be looked upon, however, as a nominal 
estimate; for even a generation after this, the 
dower of the widow of Philip, the second pro- 
prietor in this extensive estate, is said to have 
been but £90 currency, per annum, or about 
two hundred and fifty dollars! Governor Liv- 
ingston, speaking of it in a letter to the son of 
the last proprietor, dated 10th Nov., 1755, says, 
" Without a large personal estate, and their own 
uncommon industry and capacity for business^ 
instead of making out of this extensive tract of 
land a fortune for their children, it would have 
proved both to your and my father but a competent 
maintenance." 

Thirteen thousand acres, or thereabouts, were 
set off by the last will of Robert, the first lord, to 
form the lower manor of Clermont, which was given 
to his youngest son, Robert, the grandfather of the 
late Chancellor Livingston. The bulk of this 
extensive property was devised in tail, and trans- 
mitted through the two next generations, in the 
hands of the eldest son and grandson, Philip and 
Robert. On the death of the latter in 1790, the 
estate being divided, the shares of his four sons 
were understood to amount to about twenty-eight 
thousand acres, some further deductions having 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 41 

been previously made, by the running of the hne 
between this state and Massachusetts.* 

In June, 1716, Livingston was returned from his 
manor to the colonial Assembly (in which body he 
appears to have sat in 1711 for the city and county 
of Albany) ; and Smith speaks of him as one of 
the most active members. At the same time he 
afforded material assistance to Governor Burnet in 
his administration of the Indian interests.t The 
only published production of Livingston's pen is 
the Address of the Assembly to Governor Hunter, 
on his leaving the province in 1719, which by 
SmithJ is attributed to him, in conjunction with the 
eccentric Lewis Morris. 

In 1718, on the resignation of Nicoll, Livingston 
was chosen Speaker of the Assembly, and this 
situation he retained till obliged by ill health, in 
1725, to relinquish it; whereupon the house " de- 
sired he would nevertheless assist them as a mem- 
ber as often as his state of health would permit 
during his stay in town." Subsequent to this I 

* I have not met with any information respecting the Livingston 
Manor, on which I place perfect reUance. The principal facts 
stated in the text are, however, I believe, sufficiently accurate, 
and if those more conversant with the subject detect me 
in error, I have but to solicit a charitable construction for de- 
ficiencies that could only have been supplied by a toilsome 
examination of ancient documents, of the existence of which I 
am not certain, and the perusal of which might scarcely be worth 
the time and trouble it would involve. 

t Smith, vol. i. pp. 208, 249. 

I Vol. i. p. 227. 

F 



42 THE, LIFE OF 

have been able to find no notices of Mr. Living- 
ston. His death probably took place in the course 
of this or the following year. 

Such, compiled from uncertain traditions, our 
early records, the sparing notices of the histo- 
rian, and the other documents to which reference 
has been made, is the meagre, unsatisfactory, and 
often conjectural account, that I have been able to 
collect of the first of the family of Livingston in this 
country. Its various details may be occasionally 
questionable; but the general features of the char- 
acter and career of this enterprising man are so 
marked that they may be easily recognised even 
at this distance of time. At three distinct periods 
of his life we see him exposed to the rancour of 
personal and political enemies, eager to retaliate 
upon him the zeal with which he had opposed 
their projects. In each instance he appears to 
have baffled their designs, and to have acquired 
increased importance. Finally we find him occu- 
pying till immediately before his death one of the 
most distinguished stations in the province. 

By his wife Alida, Robert Livingston had sev- 
eral children,* and owing to the death of the eldest 
son, Philip, the second, succeeded to the manorial 
estate. 

Of this, the second lord or proprietor of the 



* John, who died young, PhUip, Gilbert, Robert, Margaret, mar- 
ried to Col. Samuel Vetch, and Johanna, the wife of Cornelius 
Van Hornc. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 43 

manor of Livingston, there is but little information 
to be given. His inherited property gave him with 
his contemporaries rank and consequence, which he 
appears to have sustained by a life of industry, 
regularity, and decorum. He was born at Albany 
in the year 1686. In that city he passed a con- 
siderable portion of his life, and was at one 
time connected with its municipal government. 
He was for some time Deputy Secretary of Indian 
affairs under his father, and on the resignation of 
the latter in 1722, was appointed agent. As early 
as 1709 he was returned to the Assembly from the 
city and county of Albany, and in 1710, he appears 
to have been at the taking of Port Royal.* At a 
later date he bore the rank of colonel in the pro- 
vincial forces. 

In October, 1725, he was called to a seat in the 
council, and this office he retained during his life. 
In 1737 Mr. Livingston was appointed one of the 
commissioners to run the line between New-Hamp- 
shire and Massachusetts, and presided in the 
board.t His death, which took place in 1749, will 
be spoken of hereafter. He married Catharine 
Van Brugh, daughter of Captain Peter Van Brugh 
of Albany, and a member of a respectable Dutch 
family often mentioned in our early annals,| and 

: * Vid. Halliburton's Nova-Scotia, vol. i. p. 88. 

t Belknap's New-Hampshire, Ed. 1813, vol. ii. p. 112. 

X Carel Van Brugge was Vice Commander or Lieut. Governor 
under Peter Stuyvesant in 1648. Vid. Vanderkemp's Dutch 
Records, vol. v. p. 74. 



44 THE^ LIFE OP 

who was himself for some time a member of the 
Assembly and a commissioner of Indian affairs. 
By this lady, Mr. Livingston had a large family. 
Robert, who succeeded him in the manor, Peter 
Van Brugh, an eminent merchant of New-York, 
who at an early period of the revolutionary strug- 
gle embraced the American side, Philip, the Signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, John, also a 
merchant, William, the subject of the following 
memoir, Henry, who died in the island of Jamaica, 
Sarah, wife of William Alexander, Lord Stirling, 
Alida, wife of Henry Hansen and afterwards of 
Martin Hoffman, and Catharine, Mrs. Lawrence. 

The two first heads of this family were evidently 
enlisted in the ranks of the aristocratic or govern- 
ment party, and, so far as the question was then 
mooted, against the popular cause. The privileges 
they enjoyed explains this, and the different temper 
and intelligence of the times partially excuse it ; 
but it may surely be claimed as an additional merit 
for their descendants of the third generation, that 
having these precedents in their own family, in op- 
position to the force of example, and disregarding 
the principles of their education, they should with 
so very few exceptions have united in the cheerful 
surrender of these exclusive privileges, and in the 
establishment and strenuous defence of those in- 
stitutions which do not look to the comfort and 
happiness of the few, but to the prosperity and ad- 
vancement of all. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 4i 



CHAPTER II. 

Birth and Education of William Livingston — He graduates at Yale 
College in 1741 — Commences the Study of the Law — Letters 
— His Marriage — Publishes the Poem of Philosophic Solitude, 
in 1747 — Begins to practise as Attorney in 1748 — Digests the 
Laws of the Colony in 1752 — His professional Character. 

William Livingston, the fifth child of Phihp 
and Catharine Livingston, was born at Albany, in 
the province of Nev^r-York, in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1723.* 

The length of time which has now elapsed 
precludes the possibility of collecting those famil- 
iar and characteristic anecdotes so fleeting in 
their very nature, which necessarily form the early 
portion of all biography. I have only been able to 
learn that the first fourteen years of Mr. Living- 
ston's boyhood were principally passed at Albany, 
under the protection of his maternal grandmother, 
Mrs. Sarah Van Brugh. It was probably during 
this time that, as he says in a letter written sub- 
sequently,t " I spent a year among the Mohawks 

* Probably on the 30th. The minute of his baptism, on the 
Records of the Dutch Church in that city, is dated 8 lObr. 
1723. His relatives, Robert Livingston, of Albany, and Robert 
Livingston, of New- York, stood godfathers. 

t To the Rev. Mr, David Thompson, in Amsterdam, Jan. 
12th, 1756. 



46 



THE. LIFE OF 



(the chief of the Six Nations), with a missionary of 
the Society for propagating the Gospel, under 
whom 1 then studied their language, and had a 
good opportunity to learn the genius and manners 
of the natives ;" — an opportunity which he did not 
neglect, for his letters, from which in their proper 
place we shall make extracts, no less than his 
printed works, show him to have had a very 
correct understanding of the external relations of 
the province, and of the measures to be pursued 
with regard to the French . and Indians, the two 
chief subjects of colonial vigilance and apprehen- 
sion. 

There is in the possession of Mr. William Jay a 
small ill-painted hkeness of young Livingston, taken 
probably about this time, which represents him in a 
cocked hat and feather, ruffles and small-clothes.* 
It serves to illustrate not less the state of manners 
than of the arts at the period to which it belongs. 
Before Mr. Livingston's future profession was de- 
termined upon, he is said to have expressed a strong 
desire to devote himself to the art of painting, and 
to have urged that he might be sent to Italy, to 
study in the schools of that country ; but whether 

' * The only full-sized portrait of Governor Livingston, taken 
after he had reached maturity, is in the interior of this state. 
For the purposes of this memoir it was considered inaccessible, 
and I have therefore, though with regret, been obliged to content 
myself with the profile at the beginning of the volume, for which 
I beg here to acknowledge my obligations to Mrs. Bradford, of 
Burlington, N. J. It was probably taken about the year 1773. 



WIILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 47 

from those aristocratic prejudices which may be 
supposed to have infected the opulent colonial 
families, or from a more rational belief that such 
an occupation could not be followed as a means 
of support in a young and poor province, his 
wishes were overruled by his parents, and an 
academical education was given him, preparatory 
to the practice of the law. The tastes, thus 
checked, developed themselves in a somewhat 
different channel. His fondness for the mechanic 
arts furnished the relaxation of his leisure hours 
during a large portion of his life. 

In 1737, before he had terminated his fourteenth 
year, young Livingston left Albany and was entered 
a freshman at Yale College, at which institution 
in 1731, '33, and '37 his brothers, Peter Van Brugh, 
John, and Philip, had respectively taken their first 
degrees. The records of the college for this pe- 
riod contain no notices which serve to throw any 
hght upon the individual character of the students, 
and this portion of Mr. Livingston's life is therefore 
also a blank. We only know that in 1741 he was 
graduated at the head of his class,* immediately 
after which he left New-Haven for New-York, to 
commence the study of the law. To the discredit 
of our ancestors it must be remembered that at this 
time there were only six personsf in the province 

* I am ignorant whether this implies any distinction. I have 
not examined the records of Yale College, and am indebted for 
my information to the courtesy of President Day. 
t Smith, vol. i. note G. and Catal. of Yale College. 



48 THE LIFE OF 

besides himself and his brothers, those in orders 
excepted, who had received a collegiate education. 
Mr. Livingston appears to have always looked 
back with pleasure and fondness to this portion of 
his life, and he retained, with that tenacity of im- 
pression which was in some degree peculiar to him, 
his affection for those of his fellows between whom 
and himself an intimacy was engendered by long 
association and a community of feelings and pur- 
suits. " Alas, alas !" he says in a letter written to 
one of his classmates,* nearly fifty years subse- 
quent to this period, " there is I suppose no proba- 
bility, considering my time of life, of my ever hav- 
ing it in my power to revisit that darling spot of 
mine in which I received the first rudiments of my 
education, and for which I still retain the tenderest 
affection, New-Haven." 

Mr. Livingston was entered as a student of law 
in the office of Mr. James Alexander, a Scotch 
gentleman, who came out to New- York in the year 
1715,t and who was at this time one of the most 
eminent lawyers of the province. Smith, our colo- 
nial historian, says of him, "He was a man of 
learning, good morals, and solid parts. He was 
bred to the law, and though no speaker, at the head 
of his profession for sagacity and penetration ; and 



* To the Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey, 20th Feb. 1787. 

t Smith, Hist. N. Y. edit. 1830, vol. i. p. 271. Quitting 
his native country, as it is said, on account of his connexion 
with the Earl of Mar's insurrection in favour of the Pretender. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 49 

in application to business no man could surpass 
him. Nor was he unacquainted with the affairs 
of the pubHc, having served in the secretary's 
office, the best school in the province for instruc- 
tion in matters of government — equally distin- 
guished for his humanity, generosity, great abili- 
ties, and honourable stations." This, however, 
is not all Mr. Alexander's praise; he obtained 
higher distinction by being, both in the Council 
and Assembly, the constant advocate of popu- 
lar rights and privileges as they were then im- 
perfectly understood. Nor was his opposition to 
the insolence, extortion, and avarice of the govern- 
ment agents maintained without injury to himself. 
He stood in opposition to every member of the 
Council on the election of Clarke in 1736; he was 
driven from the bar for pspousing the cause of 
Zenger in 1734, although subsequently reinstated ; 
and he finally lost his life by going up to the As- 
sembly in April, 1756, when suffering from a severe 
illness, to oppose one of the ministerial schemes.* 

* Vid: Smith, Ed. 1814. Continuation and App. Ed. 1830, 
vol. ii. p. 281, et passim. Tlie following letter from Mr. Alex- 
ander to John Tabor Kempe, afterward attorney-general for the 
province, which is here inserted from the original MSS, may be 
worth preserving as one of the very few literary remains of a 
man highly distinguished in his day, but whb has left but 
scanty testimonials of his character and ability behind him. 

"Dear Sir, 
" I have considered your speech, and have made notes on it : one 
general note I would add, that a speech to a jury after evidence 

G 



50 THE LIFE OF 

The influence of habitual intercourse with a 
man of this character could scarcely be otherwise 
than beneficial, and the effects of it, as well as 
their subsequent friendship, which lasted till Alex- 
ander's death, may, perhaps, be traced in the 

given — every part of it ought to be connected with the evidence 
by reference to such a deed, which says so and so — such a wri- 
ting, so and so — such a witness declared so and so. These are 
constantly to be the premises on which the speech is to be 
founded, and when the premises you reason upon are fixed, pro- 
ceed in reasonable observations and consequences — but referring 
to or relying oh. things not given in evidence, though per- 
fectly known to you, is departing from the evidence in the cause, 
and flying at random, which must be destructive to a good cause, 
but a bad one has occasion for it. 

" To use an argument unsupported by the evidence is mur- 
dering a cause, for the opposite side will drop all your material 
arguments well supported, and hisist on those not supported, and 
refer the jury to those as specimens of your argimients. 

" If you have good evidence of those malicious things yon in- 
sinuate against the defendant, you should either get depositions 
or certificates, signed by the witnesses who can prove these things, 
and give them to your counsel to insert what they think proper 
thereof in the brief, in order to examine into and prove those 
things ; or if you are sure the witnesses you call will prove these 
things, but not willingly — then write down what you can prove 
by such a witness, and give it to your counsel ; but remember 
that if you misinform him, you hurt your own cause thereby. 

" Lengthening a cause by a multiplicity of evidence not ne- 
cessary, puts those things necessary out of the remembrance of 
the jury, and brings things into darkness and obscurity. This is 
an artifice of those who have a bad cause to manage. But those 
who have a good cause ought to be cautious how they offer any 
piece of evidence but what's necessary and pertinent ; all those 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 51 

Steadfast political course of his student. It was 
about this period that Mr. Livingston entertained 
the intention of prosecuting the study of his profes- 
sion in England, the schools of the mother country 
being then rightly looked upon as the only pure 
fountains of juridical science. He carried his 
purpose so far, as in 1742 to obtain admission to 
the Society of the Middle Temple ; but the design 
was afterwards relinquished.* 

Mr. Livingston appears to have attached some 
value to this membership, for at the foot of an 



that are not so ought to be wmnowed out and blown away as 
chaff from the corn — and as they ought to be cautious how they 
offer evidence not material, so ought they to be far more cautious 
to offer to argue upon things not given in evidence or clearly 
proved. * * * James Alexander." 

This was probably written no long time before Alexander's 
death. 

* The original certificate of admission runs as follows : 

« 29 Die Octobris, 1742. 
" Mar. Willielmus Livingstone, filius Collonelli Philippi Living- 
stone, de Novo Eboraco in America, Armigeri, adraissus est in 
Societatem Medii Templi, London, specialiter et obligatur una 
cum, &c. 

Et Dat pro fine 4 

F**** et Impressionibus 14 6 



4 14 6 



Vera Copia, 

Exam. pr. Fran. Fane, Thos: 

Rd. Bruncker, 
Sub. Thesaurus." 



52 THE LIFE OF 

engraved plate of his arms, probably cut about 
this time, his name stands as " William Livingston, 
of the Middle Temple." An anecdote connected 
with this coat of arms is too characteristic to be 
omitted. He relates it himself, in a letter written 
long afterwards.* " My grandfather" (Robert 
Livingston, on the occasion of his ^being cast 
away on the coast of Portugal, as has been already 
related), he says, " altered the crest and motto of 
the family arms, the former into a ship in an 
adverse wind, the latter into Spero meliora. These 
have since been retained by all the family except 
myself, who not being able without ingratitude to 
Providence to wish for more than I had, changed 
the former into a ship under full sail, and the latter 
into jiut Mors aut Vita decor a^ To those who 
may reach the close of this volume, it will scarcely 
be necessary to say that the virtuous resolution 
expressed in this sentence was fully adhered to, 
from first to last. 

In May, 1742, Mrs. Sarah Van Brugh died. I have 
already spoken of her as the guide and protectress 
of Mr. Livingston's boyhood. He appears to have 
preserved a grateful recollection of her kindness, 
and named a daughter after her. But he retained 
in his own person a very different testimonial of 
her affection. The impatience aud irritability of 
temper, which he never completely succeeded in 
overcoming, was by his immediate family generally 

* To Col. Livingston, of Holland, 10th June, 1785. . 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 53 

attributed to her excessive fondness and undiscri- 
minating indulgence.* 

. From a letter-book kept by Mr. Livingston, in 
the year 1744, in vi^hich are irregularly inserted 
copies of a small number of letters, principally 
relating to private matters, which even at this 
late day there would be no propriety in exposing 
to the public,t I am able to insert a few extracts, 
illustrative of his character at this time. It will 
be remembered that they were written, excepting 
the last, before he had reached his twenty-first 
year. 

These letters show Mr. Livingston very much 
devoted to his studies, and are more worthy of 
notice, as proving at how early an age he became 
imbued with that conviction of the value of religion, 
and that constant consideration of its precepts, 
which in a singular manner marked his whole life, 
and contributed so much to the rigid integrity 
and inflexible uprightness of his private and public 
conduct. " Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo adflatu 
divino unquam fuit," says the heathen philoso- 
pher,! ^nd the sublime truth has received a new 

* Her husband, Captain Peter Van Brugh, died in July, 1738. 
These two dates are from a MS. vol. in the possession of H. 
Bleecker, Esq., of Albany. It is a journal "kept by Barent 
Bradt, Clerk (Voorleezer) of the Dutch Church, in the city of 
Albany, of the burials of persons belonging to that church, from 
1722 to 1757." 

t Ef«uTac fMvvov ^x^'- Anac. 

t Cic. N. D. 2. 66. 



54 THE LIFE OF 

meaning, and a fuller confirmation since it was 
uttered. But youth is so apt to drink to the 
dregs every cup of which it tastes, so apt to for- 
get that truth lies remote from all extremes — 
that the religious zeal of an early age is sometimes 
unfortunately looked upon with suspicion, as cloak- 
ing, perhaps, a harsh and repulsive character; 
liable to confound bigotry with piety, and intoler- 
ance with devotion. How far Mr. Livingston was 
from laying himself open to these charges, may be 
seen by the following extract from a letter to the 
Reverend Mr. James Sprout, one of his former 
classmates. 

"New- York, 22(1 Sept., 1744. 
" My dear Sir, 

" I am sorry to hear you are so divided among 
yourselves with respect to religion, which is plain 
and simple, and to the meanest capacity intelligible. 
Every man has a right to think for himself, as he 
shall answer for himself, and it is unreasonable for 
me to be angry with any one for being of different 
principles, as he has the same pretence to quarrel 
with me. And when we consider that truth is 
comprised in a small compass, but that error is 
infinite, we shall not be so positive and dogmatical, 
to set up for infallibility, and anathematize those of 
a contrary opinion. There is no sect that come 
imder the denomination of Christians but what 
pretend to ground their principles on the Holy 
Scriptures, and consequently all have an equal 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 55 

light to think themselves the best ; and if they are 
heretical in some tenets, in others they are confess- 
edly orthodox. Let us then resemble the bee, that 
collects the purest nectar out of a diversity of 
flowers, that we may not quake, but exult, at the 
second sound of the trumpet, when we shall not be 
asked of what sect we have been, but be judged 
according to our works. I am, &c. 

"Wm. Livingston." 

In these mild and tolerant opinions is clearly to 
be found the germ of that uniform opposition to 
ecclesiastical as well as to civil tyranny, for which 
the writer was throughout his life conspicuous. It 
speaks highly for the soundness and sohdity of 
the materials of character, when we find these 
marked features impressed upon them at so early 
an ag6, undergoing no change or modification 
from the rough wear of the world during a long life. 

The following extract from a letter to Miss E. 
T., dated New-York, November 17th, 1744, may 
be found interesting, as throwing a glimmer of 
light upon the stately, and yet, in many respects, 
unpolished manners of the period. 

" As but a few days have elapsed since your de- 
parture hence, nothing momentous has happened 
either relating births, deaths, or marriages, which, 
when they offer, or any other thing material, I shall 
give you as fresh information as my hermetical 
kind of life will permit. However, I must not omit 



56 



THE LIFE OF 



that we had the wafel frohc at Miss Walton's, 
talked of before your departure. The feast, as 
usual, was preceded by cards, and the company so 
numerous that they filled two tables ; after a few 
games, a magnificent supper appeared in grand 
order and decorum, but for my own part I was not a 
little grieved that so luxurious a feast should come 
under the name of a wafel frolic, because if this 
be the case, I must expect but a few wafel frohcs 
for the future; the frolic was closed up with ten 
sunburnt virgins lately come from Columbus''s JYew- 
foundland, and sundry other female exercises, be- 
sides a play of my own invention which 1 have not 
room enough to describe at present ; however, kiss- 
ing constitutes a great part of its entertainment." 

The following unfinished letter from Mr. Living- 
ston to his father, characteristic and amusing, as 
showing his irritability but half subdued by the 
formal and respectful intercourse which then sub- 
sisted between parents and children, closes the ex- 
tracts from this volume. 

"New- York, Dec. 4, 1744. ' 
" Hon. Father, 

" Sir, — I have received your letter of November 
21st, whereof the first two lines are, 'I am much 
concerned to hear that you neglect your study, and 
are abroad most every night.' ^s to neglecting my 
study^ I am as much concerned to hear it as my 
father, having read the greatest part of this winter 
till 12 and 2 o'clock at night, and since 1 have had 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 67 

a fire in my room, have frequently rose at five in 
the morning, and read by candle-Ught, which 1 
suppose your informer (whatever ingenious fellow 
it be) was ignorant, as 'tis imposssible he should 
know it without being a wizard. As to my being 
abroad almost every night, I have for this month 
staid at Mr. Alexander's till 8 and 9 o'clock at 
night, and shall continue to do so all winter, he in- 
structing us in the mathematics,* which is indeed 
being abroad." 

It may be regarded as a curious coincidence, if 
not as ominous of Mr. Livingston's lifelong oppo- 
sition to establishments, that the first of his 
essays which now can be identified, and probably 
the first of his printed pieces, is an invective 
against the mode of studying law as then prac- 
tised; against the drudgery to which the clerks 
were subjected, and the inattention of their 
nominal instructers ; defects which have by no 
means even yet disappeared, but which we can 
scarcely hope or desire to see remedied, except 
by individual merits and exertion. The essay may 
be found in Parker's New-York Weekly Post Boy, 
for 19th August, 1745, signed Tyro Philokgis, and 
headed with the appropriate motto, 

" Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis apes." 

* There is a curious MS. volume in the Library of the N. Y. 
Historical Society, filled with mathematical and astronomical 
calculations by Alexander. See in Sparks' Gouverneur Morris, 
vol. i. p. 292, an anecdote illustrative of his general reputation for 
proficiency in these studies. 

H 



58 TH*: LIFE OF 

If Mr. Alexander was not an exception to the 
general character of his profession in this respect, — 
and we may suppose that he was from the notice 
of him in one of the precedmg letters, — the disci- 
pline of his office had probably some share in 
producing the subsequent misunderstanding. It 
is certain, however, that in the spring of the next 
year, 1746, on the appearance of another piece in 
the same paper, with the authorship of which Mr. 
Livingston was charged by Alexander, and which 
he did not deny, a rupture ensued, and quitting 
the office of his instructer, he entered that of 
William Smith, then a very prominent lawyer on the 
liberal side of colonial politics, and afterward a 
Judge of the Supreme Court. The piece we have 
referred to may be found in the Post Boy for the 
3d of March, 1746. If Mr. Livingston's silence 
arose not from false pride, but from inability to 
deny the charge, he was certainly wanting in deco- 
rum ; and the abstract justice of the criticism could 
not warrant the free and offensive tone of the 
piece. Whatever was the justice of the dispute, 
the parties were afterwards entirely reconciled, and 
Mr. Livingston was employed professionally both 
by Mr. Alexander and his widow. Perhaps the 
ability of the rising lawyer, and the energetic pat- 
riotism of the young politician, obtained an easy 
pardon for the errors and oversights of the unno- 
ticed student.* 

* The incident which gave rise to the dispute is said to have 
been as follows : — A Mr. Rice, organist of Trinity Church, for- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 59 

About this time, though perhaps in the course 
of the preceding year,* and before he had com- 
pleted his professional studies, Mr. Livingston was 
married to Miss Susanna French, a lady of about 
his own age, daughter of Philip French, a gentle- 
man who had previously owned a tract of land in 
New-Jersey, comprising a large portion if not the 
whole of what is now JNew-Brunswick, but whose 
fortune was at this time very much impaired. Miss 
French was granddaughter by the mother's side 
of Anthony Brockholls, Lieutenant Governor of 
the colony of New-York, under Andross, and sub- 
sequently its chief magistrate.t 



getful of the strongly-marked distinctions which then practically 
established what has in later days been termed the " Theory of 
Ranks," presumed to send a valentine, viz. a pair of gloves with 
a copy of verses emblematic and expressive of his devotion, to 
Miss Alexander. The fashionable young beauty and her mother 
resented it as an insult, and their conduct struck the more repub- 
lican mind of young Livingston as so unreasonable that, unmind- 
ful of the relation in which he stood to the lady's father, the pas- 
quinade already spoken of was the result. 

* I know no method of ascertaining the date of this marriage. 
There is no mention of it in the newspapers, and I am informed 
by the Rev. W. W. Phillips that the records of the church in 
Wall-street, the oldest Presbyterian society in the city, and to 
which Mr. Livingston belonged, go back no further than the 
year 1765. His eldest child was born in 1746. 

t The following letter from Dongan, at one time governor of 
the province, and afterwards Earl of Limerick, to Brockholls, dis- 
covered among some papers of Mr. Livingston, may find favour 
in the eyes of those curious in the antiquities of bur state : — 



60 THE* LIFE OF 

Mrs. Livingston's character was plain and un- 
pretending. She had received only the imperfect 
education of the time, but endovi^ed with a strong 
intellect, ardent in her affections, devoted to her 
husband, and adapting herself with success to his 
pecuHarities of temper, she possessed his love and 
respect undiminished to the end of her life.* 



« 12th, 1697. 

"Sm, 
" To let you see that I am better conditioned than you, 1 take 
the freedom to give you the trouble of this, and to give you a 
little comfort after nine yeares tribulation — to let you know that 
there will be a peace before the plenipotentiaryes part ; though 
the damned Ffrench are very troublesome both by sea and land. 
'Tis believed that the Prince of Conti is made King of Poland, 
and that Barcelone is taken by the Ffrench. If Ponts has taken 
the Galeons, as 'tis reported, and Barcelona taken, ye poore Span- 
iards will be forced to knock under the table. But for England, 
ye confederacy could not have held out soe long as they have 
done. If King William be not * * * by the Ffrench, I am afraid 
we shall have more trouble — you are very happy there to what 
they are here. I cannot goe to those parts till my accounts are 
auditted and returned hither, and till I settle some little concernes 
of my owne here. My humble service to your lady and ye rest 
of yr ffamily. I am, Sr, 

" Yr most humble Servant, 

"Tho: Dongan. 
"Maj. BrockhoUs." 

* At the time of the marriage Miss French resided with her 
maiden aunt, Mary BrockhoUs, and the new-married couple 
remained there for about a year after the union. They then 
removed to a residence in Water-street, where they lived till 
1768, when they changed it for the house at the corner of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 61 

In 1747 was published the first of Mr. Living- 
ston's productions which received a separate form, 
anless we except the Art of Pleasing^ a juvenile 
performance, written in imitation of Horace's 
Epistle Ad Pisones, which I have never seen. Its 
original title ran thus, " Philosophic Solitude, or 
the Choice of a Rural Life. A Poem by a Gentle- 
man educated at Yale College. Me placeant ante 
omnia sylvsB. — Virg. Otium sine literis, mors est, 
et vivi hominis sepultura. — Sen." This poem, 
which contains about seven hundred lines, was 
republished at Boston in 1762, and has been since 
the revolution either wholly or in part several 
times reprinted.* It has consequently preserved 
its station in our colonial literature, and is better 
known than almost any of Mr. Livingston's works. 
As to the merits of this production, the opinion 
of a recent critic, who has apparently paid much 
attention to subjects of this nature, may be as- 
sumed as impartial : — " Mr. Livingston's poem on 
Philosophic Solitude has been several times re 
printed, and though it has not high poetic value, 
displays the tastes of a scholar, and the virtues of 

William and Garden-streets, in later days well-known as the 
post-office, but now swept away by the tide of improvement. 
This was their home until they left New- York altogether. 

* It may be found at length, in a volume entitled American 
Poems, selected and original, printed at Litchfield, Conn, in 
1793, as well as in the Tlolumbian Monitor. It was also re- 
published immediately after the author's death, in 1790, and 
parts of it are inserted in Mr. Kettell's recent Selections. 



62 THE^LIFE OF 

an upright mind."* It is full of that love of the 
country, and of that desire for a rural domestic life, 
which, though not till long afterwards, and then 
but imperfectly, gratified, seems during the most 
busy moments of his career to have furnished his 
fondest anticipations. The smooth flow of the 
verse and the turn of expression bear also evident 
marks of an admiration and imitation of Pope. 
The tribute of friendship between the ninetieth 
and one hundred and thirtieth verses of the poem 
to Noah Welles, a classmate, afterwards minister 
at Stamford, Conn., and to WilHam Peartree Smith, 
at this time a resident of New-York, and during the 
revolutionary war a member of the Council of 
New-Jersey, received an appropriate return, in 
some lines from these persons " to the Ingenious 
Author of the Poem entitled Philosophic Soli- 
tude." They are incorporated with some of 
the early reprints of the work, but have been 
omitted in the later editions. It would be out of 
place to give here any extracts from this poem. 
It is sufiicient to say generally that Mr. Livingston 
does not appear to so great advantage in his 
rhythmical as in his prose compositions. His 
satirical pieces are the best of the former, but 
they are frequently too coarse for the taste of the 
present day, although warranted by high authority 
in the generation for which he wrote. His graver 
verses are in most instances formal, and through- 

* Am. Q. Rev. No. iv. p. 506. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. (53 

out all we can discern marks of constraint, of 
subjection to the rhyme and the metre shackhng 
his thoughts. The ideas are poetical, but the 
mechanical execution is not equal to the concep- 
tion, and they but rarely have the force and eleva- 
tion of his political and state papers. 

In the fall of the next year, 1748, Mr. Livingston 
completed his clerkship, and was admitted to the 
bar as attorney. His registers show that at an 
early period he was professionally employed 
more frequently, and in more important actions, 
than is usual in similar cases.* 

In February, 1749, Philip Livingston, the father 
of the subject of this memoir, died at Ncw-York."t 
Up to the period of his death he retained his seat 
in the Council, and with him expired the last 
prominent member of this family to be found 
arrayed on the side of the Enghsh government, or 
enjoying its favour. He appears, however, to have 
taken no active part in the pohtics of the colony. 
The few particulars which have been handed down 
in his family respecting his funeral ceremonies are 



* The license to practise, signed by Governor Clinton, is 
dated 14th Oct., 1748. Mr. L. was qualified and admitted, as 
appears by the clerk's endorsement, on the 18th. It may be that 
there is some error as to the commencement of his clerkship. 
Smith says in his appendix, that an apprenticeship of but three 
years was required of graduates. Some new rule may have 
been established between 1744 and 1756 (the date of Smith's 
work), but the discrepancy appears too great. 

t N. Y. Gazette for Feb. 6th, 1749, 



64< THE LIFE OF 

illustrative of the manners of the time, and of the 
consequence of the individual. He died, as has 
been said, at Nevi^-York, but his obsequies (for so 
they may be called) were performed both at that 
place, and at his residence in the manor of Living- 
ston. In the city, the lower rooms of most of the 
houses in Broad-street, where he resided, were 
thrown open to receive the assemblage. A pipe 
of wine was spiced for the occasion, and to each 
of the eight^bearers, with a pair of gloves, mourning- 
ring, scarf, and handkerchief, a monkey spoon was 
given.* At the manor, the whole ceremony was 
repeated ; another pipe of wine was spiced, and 
besides the same presents to the bearers, a pair of 
black gloves and handkerchief were given to each 
of the tenants. The whole expenses were said to 
amount to five hundred pounds,t and this wasteful 
consumption in his own family may have led Mr. 
Livingston a few years afterwards to devote one 
of his Independent Reflectors to the " Extrava- 
gance of our Funerals."J 

The following pasquinade written immediately 

* It would be desirable to know the origin of this custom, 
now entirely obsolete. This spoon differed from the common 
one in having a circular and very shallow bowl, and took i(s 
name from the figure of an ape or monkey, which was carved in 
solido at the extremity of the handle. 

t It is said too that this was a retrenchment upon previous 
customs, and it is mentioned as an instance of the notable Dutch 
habits of Mrs. Livingston, that she was one of the first persons 
to give Imen scarfs in lieu of silk, as had been the former mode. 

X Ind. Ref. No. 29. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 65 

before or after a closely-contested election, has 
never I believe been printed, and as it is the first 
of Mr. Livingston's political writings of which the 
authorship is certain, it is here inserted from his 
MSS. 

" Political Bill of Mortality for the month of 
August, in the year 1750, in a certain quarter of the 
town near the Bowling-Green. 

Burst with malice, 4 

Over-fatigued with writing dialogues, 2 
Grumbling, 3 

Of vain expectations, 10 

For want of pay, 5 

Of roaring against the four members, 7 
Of Madeira, 4 

Nocturnal consultations, 3 

Of the Cacoethes, 12 

Running about for votes, 14 

Of Probity, 1 

Impolitic blunders, 6 

Of a letter to the freeholders, 39 



In all 110" 

It would be difficult now to ascertain the precise 

object of this satire, which doubtless grew out of 

some one of those trifling colonial squabbles which 

were the preludes to more serious dissensions. It 

was probably directed against some measures of 

the party headed at this time by Governor Chnton, 

and of which James De Lancey, afterwards chief 

justice, and heut. governor, was a very prominent 

I 



THE LIFE OF 



leader. Among the opponents of this faction Mr. 
Livingston, at an early period, arrayed himself. 
" Will," said one of the De Lanceys to him famil- 
iarly, before his sentiments were clearly ascertained, 
" you would be the cleverest fellow in the world if 
you were only one of us." 

" I will try to be a clever fellow," was the brief 
answer, " without being one of you." 

In the year 1752, Mr. Livingston, together 
with William Smith, junior, in obedience to an act 
of the Assembly, passed Nov. 1750, published the 
first digest of the colony laws. It comprised in a 
ponderous foho all the statutes passed between 
1691 and 1751, at that time in force. The compen- 
sation allowed by the legislature was 280/. for the 
joint labours of the compilers. A second volume, 
comprising the laws from 1751 to 1756, appeared 
under the direction of the same persons in 1762. 
For this they received £100. It was at the time a 
labour of great use, but it required no other qual- 
ifications than industry and accuracy. It per- 
formed the duty, and shared the fate of all similar 
compilations. An indispensable book to the pro- 
fession for a short time, it was, a few years after- 
wards, in 1773, completely superseded, except with 
the legal antiquarian, by the new edition of Mr. 
Van Schaack. This in its turn was displaced in 
like manner, and the same undertaking was more 
than once repeated, until in our own day the labour 
of the compiler has yielded to the more original 
and important work of the reviser. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 67 

The chief advantage of this work to Mr. Liv- 
ingston was the effect which its pubhcation had of 
bringing him into notice. It was a task honoura- 
ble to be performed by so young a member of the 
bar, and together with his diUgent attention to his 
profession, and the assistance of his numerous 
family connexions, soon procured him an extensive 
business, which was gradually increased by the re- 
spect paid to his independent and fearless charac- 
ter, and by the prominent part which he took in 
the political affairs of the colony. 

In January, 1753, 1 find him commencing a 
suit for the eccentric Dr. James Magra against 
Governor Clinton, under the act against harbour- 
ing and concealing a slave; and in the beginning of 
the next year, with Mr. Scott and Mr. Smith, in the 
cause of O'Bryan and Bryant, arguing before the 
council for the common law-right of writs of error. 
This was an action of assumpsit, in which the 
plaintiff had a verdict for £150, and which the de- 
fendant's counsel endeavoured to carry up before 
the governor in council by writ of error. These 
writs were regulated by the royal instructions in 
cases where the sum recovered amounted to £300, 
but Mr. Livingston and his associates contended 
in behalf of Bryant, that the writ was one of com- 
mon right. The motion was denied, and the pop- 
ular doctrine overruled, notwithstanding the excite- 
ment which the controversy created at the time. 
I need not say that the principle which Mr. Living- 



68 THE LIFE OF 

ston asserted has been fully established, at least in 
this State.* 

In March, 1752, he was engaged with Smith and 
Nicoll for the defendants in the great cause of 
the Earl of Stair and others, proprietors of the 
Eastern Division of New-Jersey, vs. Bond and 
others, in the chancery of that colony, involving, 
as it appears by a cursory examination of a bill 
of unexampled length, the proprietorial rights and 
the title of the territory to a considerable extent. 
Alexander and Murray of New-York were the 
counsel of the complainants. Thus we always 
find the subject of this memoir arrayed on the side 
which has the least to boast of power or adventi- 
tious dignity. The bill was filed in 1747, and pub- 
lished in folio the same year. The answer was 
not put in till 1752. If all the proceedings were 
carried on in the same manner, the cause must 
have outlived both clients and advocates.! 

In June, 1754, we find Mr. Livingston with Mur- 
ray, Smith, and Nicoll, on the part of New-York, 
conferring with the Commissioners of Massachu- 
setts, on the subject of the boundary line of the two 
colonies. The interest of the manor, which had 

* Smith, vol. ii. p. 247. The following extract from Mr. L.'s 
register shows his share as Bryant's attorney and counsel in this 
transaction : — " Oct. 1753, filed exceptions and brought writ of 
error. 1st Jan. 1754, met at Mr. Smith's and consulted about 
reasons. Same day made fair copy of reasons and filed same. 
March 27th, attended council and read argument, 33 sheets. " 

t Vid. the printed bill, 1747. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. G9 

now descended to his eldest brother Robert, in this 
question, may perhaps have obtained for him this 
appointment. Several years afterwards, he was 
retained by his native province in the dispute with 
New-Jersey, respecting their adjacent territory.* 

A few of his letters written shortly after he had 
commenced to practise as counsellor still remain. 
They show with what independence of mind and 
elasticity of character he entered upon and pursued 
a profession, the dignity of which is sometimes less- 
ened by an unreasonable deference to authority 
and submission to superior station, incompatible 
with a proper self-respect. Among the earli- 
est is the following to Kempe, attorney-general 
of the colony, and it will be remembered, that the 
influence of office and the respect paid to it were 
somewhat greater then than they are now : but the 
writer was not one, who at any period of his life 
could be easily browbeaten or overawed. 

" New- York, August 26, 1754. 
" Sir, 
" I received from you three letters mandatory, 
the one in the case of — [three cases are enume- 
rated] — all couched in the following terms : ' Mr. 
Livingston^ I demand a plea.'' With respect to the 
two first, 1 have filed pleas almost a month ago, 

* The principal documents relating to this long-waged dis- 
pute were published about the year 1768, in a folio volume, 
which I have seen nowhere but in the Athenaeum Library at 
Albany. 



70 THE LIFE OP 

and as to the last, 1 have been at the office twice 
and find no information filed, and to plead to an 
information that is neither filed, nor you have been 
pleased to favour me with a copy of, appears to me 
something of a difficulty. Before therefore I think 
you can reasonably desire me to plead, you will be 
kind enough to do one of these two things, which 
I request with great humility, and not in the style of 
Mr. Attorney : ' I demand a copy of the infor- 
mation.' 

" I am. Sir, 
" Your humble servant, 

"Wm. Livingston. 
" William Kempe, Esq.* 
" Greenswichy 

* William Kempe, to whom the above letter is addressed, came 
to New- York, and succeeded William Smith (the elder) as advo- 
cate and attorney-general for the province, in the fall of 1752. 
He brought with him several daughters and two sons, William 
and John Tabor: the former, after a youth of low and reckless dis- 
sipation, which alienated the affections of his family, passed the 
remainder of his life in great poverty, not far from this city. The 
latter succeeded his father in his office in 1759, and held it till 
the revolution, when, adhering to the ministerial side, he remained 
in New- York during the war, and was one of the council ap- 
pointed under the mock-government of General James Robertson. 
Immediately after the peace he returned to England. John 
Tabor Kempe appears to have been a man of courteous man- 
ners, and to have taken no greater share in the political contests 
than was imposed upon him by his station. He seems to have 
been generally popular, and by no means individually obnoxious 
even to those opposed to him. His correspondence as well as his 
father's, which were left behind him when he left the country, I 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 71 

In a letter of the 8th May, 1754, he thus writes 
to one of his chents in Philadelphia : " If, in the 
mean time, you should be under any apprehension 
of not succeeding in the prosecution of the action, 
I would by no means encourage any one to carry 
on a lawsuit that is disinchned to so troublesome a 
business, which is a piece of advice not frequently 
given by those of our profession." A letter of the 
13th December, 1756, to another client, runs thus: 
" At this, I say, I am greatly surprised, because I 
told you in mine of the 29th December, which you 
acknowledge to have received, that he absolutely 
refused to give me security ; and your repeating it 
now seems to look like charging it on my mis- 
conduct, which alone, had I no other reason, would 
determine me against having any further concern 
for you, either in this or any other case." 

An examination of Mr. Livingston's registers and 
business-letters would much tend to diminish any 
regret which may be felt for the want of colonial 
reports. A great number of the cases are suits 
for the collection of debts owned by English mer- 
chants ; and causes under the complex law of eject- 
ment, now so happily exploded, form another large 
class. In a letter of the 18th April, 1754, he says, 
" Times are so bad, that there is no knowing who 
to trust We are ruined by the importation of dry 

have examined, but they throw little or no light upon the colonial 
annals. We shall meet his name again in the progress of this 
memoir. 



72 THE LIFE OF 

goods, and New- York will, I fear, soon get as ill a 
name as Boston. I have letters of attorney by 
Captain Bryant, against no less than twelve mer- 
chants." 

But without tracing Mr. Livingston along that 
weary ascent which leads to legal eminence, I here 
dismiss this portion of my subject ; briefly stating 
that after the death of Alexander in 1756, and the 
elevation of Smith to the bench in 1763,* he stood 
with the younger Smith and John Morine Scott, at 
the head of the profession. As lawyers, what were 
the comparative merits of these gentlemen, it is now 
perhaps impossible to ascertain ; but it was only 
at the bar that they stood in contrast and opposi- 
tion to each other. In their efforts to baffle 
the ministerial schemes, and in their plans for 
the benefit of the colony, they cordially and zeal- 
ously co-operated ; nor was their union of thought 
and action dissolved until the views which Mr. 
Smith unfortunately took of the revolutionary con- 
test compelled him to abandon his early and long- 
tried friends. Mr. Livingston is said never to have 
been remarkable for eloquence, and to have ac- 
quired his standing by the accuracy of his know- 
ledge, the vigour and quickness of his perception, 
and the closeness of his reasoning, seasoned occa- 
sionally perhaps by that dry humour and severe 
sarcasm which we meet in his writings. 

Not engrossed however by the claims of a profes- 

* Vid. Johnson's Digest. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 73 

sion peculiarly absorbing, Mr. Livingston had been 
already for some time labouring to establish his 
fame upon a more permanent foundation, and to 
this branch of the subject we must now turn our 
attention. Before doing so, however, it may be 
mentioned that two of the most eminent lawyers of 
this state received the rudiments of their profes- 
sional education in Mr. Livingston's office, — the late 
Chancellor Livingston, and Chief Justice Yates.* 

* Vid. App. to Secret Debates of the Federal Convention. 



74 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Livingston edits the Independent Reflector in 1752 — Dissen- 
sions on the Subject of the Charter of King's College — Letter 
relating to the French and Indians — John Morke — Mr. Liv- 
ingston edits the Watch Tower in 1754 — Termination of the 
College Controversy — Death of Mrs. Catharine Livingston 
in 1756. 

The first number of the Independent Reflector, 
published under the direction of Mr. Livingston, 
appeared on the 30th November, 1752. This was 
I beheve the first periodical in the colonies, cer- 
tainly in New-York, which, with no professed at- 
tachment to any political party, devoted itself to 
a close and impartial scrutiny of the existing estab- 
lishments, and pursuing its course without fear or 
favour, had for its object the exposure of offi- 
cial abuse, negligence, and corruption in whatever 
rank they were to be found. There was little ex- 
citement on any subject in the colony when this 
paper made its appearance, and its columns were at 
first confined to the suggestion of ideas practically 
beneficial to the mass of the people ; but its bold 
and commanding tone, its acute and searching in- 
vestigations, appear to have had no slight influence 
in fomenting those angry discussions which, burst- 
ing out almost immediately afterwards, raged with 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 75 

little intermission till the revolution. "Quand 
I'emulation n'excite pas les hommes," says Voltaire, 
speaking with more truth of the people of his day 
than of ours, " ce sont des anes qui vont leur 
chemin lentement, qui s'arretent au premier obsta- 
cle et qui mangent tranquillement leurs chardons 
a la vue des difficultes dont lis se rebutent ; mais 
aux cris d'un voix qui les encourage, aux piqures 
d'un aiguillon qui les reveille, ce sont des coursiers 
qui volent et qui sautent au dela de la barriere."* 

In the eleventh number of the work, when he 
had become somewhat excited by opposition, the 
author thus describes his purpose : " The Reflector 
is determined to proceed unawed and alike fearless 
of the humble scoundrel and the eminent villain. 
The cause he is engaged in is a glorious cause. 
'Tis the cause oftruth and liberty: what he intends 
to oppose is superstition, bigotry, priestcraft, tyranny, 
servitude, public mismanagement, and dishonesty 
in office. The things he proposes to teach, are the 
nature and excellence of our constitution, the ines- 
timable value of liberty, the disastrous effects of 
bigotry, the shame and horror of bondage, the im- 
portance of religion unpolluted and unadulterate 
with superstitious additions and inventions of 
priests. He should also rejoice to be instrumental 
in the improvement of commerce and husbandry. 
In short, any thing that may be of advantage to 
the inhabitants of this province, in particular, and 

* " Ce qu'on ne fait pas et ce qu'on pourrait faire." 



76 THE LIFE OF 

mankind in general, may freely demand a place in 
his paper." 

The importance attached to this journal at the 
time may be judged of from the violence of the 
opposition it excited. The editor was defamed in 
private society, and denounced from the pulpit.* 
The mayor recommended the grand jury to pre- 
sent the work as a libel ;t the author was charged 
with profanity, irreligion, and sedition, and his prin- 
ter, alternately menaced? and cajoled by the ene- 
mies of the paper, yielded at length to their efforts 
and refused to continue it. 

There was at this time in the colony of New- 
York, as has been already said, no political excite- 
ment of any moment, and the titles of some of the 
early numbers of the Independent Reflector will 
suffice to show the practical and useful character 
of the work. 

" No. II. Remarks on the Excise, and farming it 
shown to be injurious to the province. 

« No. III. Of the Abuses of the Road and City 
Watch. 

" No. V. On the Importation of mendicant For- 
eigners. 

* Ind. Ref. Nos. 2, 3, and 7. " The author takes this opportu- 
tunity for returning his thanks to the reverend gentleman who 
did him such signal honour, last Sunday, as to make him the subject 
of his sermon, and greatly admires his ingenuity in proving him to 
be the Gog and Magog of the Apocalypse, who have hitherto puz- 
zled all the divines in the world." 

t Pref. to Ind. Ref. p. 26. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. TSI 

"No. VII. A proposal of some further Regula- 
tion for the speedier and more effectual Extinguish- 
ment of Fires. 

" No. IX. The selling of Offices which require 
skill and confidence, a dismal omen of the declen- 
sion of a state. 

" No. XIII. Of party Divisions. 

" No. XXVIII. On the Delays of Chancery. 

« No. XXIX. Of Extravagant Funerals." 

All these essays are full of original and valuable 
thoughts on the subjects to which they refer, and 
are marked by singular boldness and freedom from 
disguise or circumlocution. Smith cites the 
Reflector repeatedly when treating of the internal 
state of New-York, and in an historical point of 
view the paper is valuable. 

It will readily be imagined that all interested in 
the abuses exposed coalesced to put down this 
audacious innovator ; but Mr. Livingston, nothing 
dismayed, entered upon the discussion of a topic 
which, gradually absorbing all subjects of less in- 
terest, brought on a much more imbittered contest. 

The Episcopalians, though comparatively few in 
number in the province of New- York, might be 
considered at this time the ruling sect ; and it will 
be remembered that the example of the mother 
country constantly reminded the colonists of those 
dividing lines of Christianity, which it was the ten- 
dency of their more tolerant government to efface. 
Befriended at home by their brethren of the estab- 
lished church, and favourably regarded by the 



78 THE LIFE OF 

royal governors, who ^ere uniformly of the same 
persuasion, the followers of the church of England 
monopolized a very considerable share of the 
places of honour and profit. The claims of the 
estabhshment over the colonies were already put 
forth, and although vehemently denied, they were 
partially sustained by a law passed in 1 693, to sup- 
port ministers in certain parishes, which, though 
clergymen of the church of England were not 
named in the act, had it seems been constantly 
filled by them. X 

The sect of the Presbyterians to which Mr. 
Livingston belonged consisted principally of those 
descendants of Dutch parents who, not under- 
standing the language of their ancestors "suf- 
ficiently to apprehend the full force and connexion 
of a sermon" (and this Mr. Livingston says was his 
own case,* his father and grandfather both having 
belonged to the Dutch congregation), one by one 
fell off from their church, which was foolishly 
tenacious of performing service in their original 
tongue. Uniting with the other dissenters, they 
gradually formed a sect the largest I believe in 
the province, but possessed of little power or in- 
fluence, and which had been under the earher 
governors, the dissolute Cornbury and the im- 
perious Fletcher, grievously oppressed. But, al- 
though they must be supposed to have felt some- 
thing of that bitterness with which a powerless 
majority looks upon a favoured minority, they 

* Letter to Aaron Burr, 29th May, 1754. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 7§ 

might perhaps have remained tranquil had not the 
Episcopahans injudiciously provoked the contest. 

The colonists of New-York, aroused at a late day 
to a sense of their deficiency in the means of educa- 
tion, and stimulated by the example of their eastern 
neighbours, after having raised, by means of suc- 
cessive lotteries, the sum of £3443, for the purpose 
of founding a college, passed an act in November 
1751, vesting the funds so obtained in ten trustees, 
seven being Episcopahans, two of the Dutch 
church, and the tenth Mr. Livingston himself, as 
we have said, an English Presbyterian. The 
inequality of this apportionment in favour of 
the Church of England attracted attention; the 
other sects took the alarm, and it was soon 
rumoured that a majority of the trustees were 
determined to have the college under the control 
of their own denomination, and that they were 
about to apply to the governor for a charter, two 
articles of which were to be, that no person out of 
communion with the Episcopalian church should 
be made president, and that the Common Prayer 
should be used for its religious exercises. 

The matter was in this unsettled state when 
the Independent Reflector was established, and 
the narrow bigotry of this plan, with the injustice 
of devoting to a sectarian use funds raised by a 
tax levied on all, could not long fail to strike the 
mind of Mr. Livingston. 

In the 17th number of his paper (22d March, 
J 753), he commenced \m Remarks vpou our intended 



8Q THE LIFE OF 

College^ and beginning with an examination ol* the 
importance of the institution, he in his subsequent 
numbers discusses the most proper manner of its 
estabhshment. This he insists, both for its dignity, 
security, and stabihty, should be, not by charter, but 
by Act of Assembly. Differing thus fundamentally 
from his opponents, he proceeds more minutely to 
describe what he would have the rules of the insti- 
tution — free to all, offensive to no sect, as such — 
and his twenty-third number contains an eloquent 
address to the inhabitants, exhorting them to im- 
body in opposition to the projected charter, the 
fervour of which is interesting, even at this late day 
when the origin of the difficulty is almost forgotten. 
The discussion could not be tranquilly had. 
The adjustment of claims between encroachment 
and resistance is rarely effected by compromise. 
The leaders of the party demanding the charter 
looked with great hostility on this advocate, " for 
constituting a college on a basis the most catholic, 
generous, and free."* The editor of theReflector 
was accused of creating party dissensions for the 
purpose of preventing the establishment of any 
college whatever, and abuse of all kinds was 
heaped freely upon him. Their attacks were re- 
turned with tenfold vigour, and the strife soon 
became one of great violence. The titles of the 
numbers pubUshed about this time, show the 
alteration in the tone of the paper. 

* Ind. Ref. No. 18. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 81 

" No. XXXI. Primitive Christianity, short and 
intelHgible — Modern Christianity, voluminous and 
incomprehensible. 

" XXXIV. Of the Veneration and Contempt of 
the Clergy. 

"XXXVI. The^ Absurdity of the Civil Magis- 
trate's interfering in Matters of Religion. 

"XXXVIII. Of Passive Obedience and Non- 
resistance." 

The character of the contest was, as often 
happens in similar cases, changed. This promi- 
nent instance of misdirected zeal or unwarrantable 
ambition, on the part of a small but active and in- 
fluential faction, roused the impartial of whatever 
denomination to an investigation of their actual 
condition. A belief was speedily excited in the 
minds of the leading dissenters, and as it subse- 
quently appeared not without reason, that there 
was a design on foot, embracing a much wider 
field than the government of the projected college, 
and that there were members of the Church of 
England Jboth at home* and in the colony, not at 
all disinclined to incorporate the civil with the 
religious establishment. 

There was every reason why the finances of a 
young and poor country should not be embar- 



* It is difficult to treat of any topics connected with our 
colonial history, without falling into the language used by the 
writers of the time. " Home," as every one knows at all versed 
in our ante-revolutionary annals, is the affectionate epithet by 
which the mother-country was designated. 



THE LIFE OF 



rassed with the support of an estabhshed church, 
and why their strong rehgious feehng should 
not be clogged by the encumbrances of tithes 
and taxes. We cannot therefore wonder, espe- 
cially when we reflect upon that salutary jealousy 
which we have inherited from our American an- 
cestors of every age, which to this day we manifest 
at every attempt to introduce sectarian theol- 
ogy into legislation, we cannot wonder that the 
fear of such an event should have roused those 
upon whose minds it operated to the greatest 
exertions. 

The controversy assumed, as we have saidy a 
new character. Going beyond the immediate sub- 
ject of dispute, Mr. Livingston, in his Reflector, 
, attacked all the abuses of the Enghsh system, and 
perhaps did not in every case confine his satire 
and reproach to its abuses. He was answered in 
the columns of the New-York Mercury, the prin- 
cipal paper arrayed against him, by those charges 
which had been freely levelled at an earlier period 
against the Independents, the Puritans, the dis- 
senters of every denomination. There was exagge- 
ration on both sides, but the discussion proved in 
its consequences beneficial, and though the liberal 
party did not entirely succeed in their immediate 
object, the immoderate zeal of their opponents 
was checked. 

The subject is one of much interest with refer- 
ence to our colonial history : we shall find it at a 
later period extending itself into the neighbouring 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 83^ 

provinces of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, in- 
volving the whole merits of the English as an 
established church, and illustrated by the talent of 
some of the ablest writers of the period. 

It is much to be regretted that we cannot assign 
to Mr. Livingston's coadjutors in the Independent 
RjCflector their respective productions. His own 
pieces, though written under different signatures,* 
may be recognised without difficulty by their 
editorial character, as he more than once asserts 
himself to be the sole conductor of the work ; but 
it has now probably become impossible to ascertain 
the able writers whose communications appear 
under the names of Shadrech Plebeianus, Atticus^ 
and Philalethes. Smith, the historian, and John 
Morine Scott, are known to have thought and 
acted with him on these subjects.t WiUiam 
Peartree Smith, already spoken of, is also under- 
stood to have been a contributor. 

The preceding statement of the relative position 
of the two parties being made, and caution being 
urged as to the allowance with which the essays 
on both sides of the question are to be regarded, 
a few extracts from the paper will best prove the 
ability and impetuosity with which it was carried on. 
Argument, reproach, ridicule, every weapon was in 
turn employed, and each well, though somewhat un- 

* As Z. B. X and Z. Z and B. X. A. 

t See letter from these gentlemen to Gaine, editor of the 
Mercury, in his paper of 3d Sept., 1753. 



u 



THE LIFE OF 



sparingly wielded. The following, taken from the 
22d No., will serve to show the importance at- 
tached to the question, and the solemnity with 
which it was discussed. It is entitled " An Address 
to the Inhabitants of this Province." 

" My dear Countrymen, 

" In a series of papers I have presented to your 
view the inconveniences that must necessarily re- 
sult from making the rule of the college the mo- 
nopoly of any single denomination. I have consid- 
ered it in a variety of lights, and explored its nume- 
rous evils. * * * Far be it from me to terrify you 
with imaginary dangers, or to wish the obstruction 
of any measure conducive to the public good. 
Did I not foresee — was 1 not morally certain of the 
most ruinous consequences from a mismanage- 
ment of the affair, I should not address you with so 
much emotion and fervour. But when I perceive 
the impending evil, when every man of knowledge 
and impartiality entertains the same apprehension, 
I cannot, 1 will not conceal my sentiments. In 
such a case, no vehemence is excessive, no zeal 
too ardent. * * * 

" Arise, therefore, and baffle the machinations of 
your and their country's foes. Every man of vir- 
tue, every man of honour will join you in defeating 
so iniquitous a design. To overthrow it, nothing 
is wanting but your resolution." He addresses 
each sect in turn, and then proceeds thus — " Hav- 
ing thus, my countrymen, accosted you as dis- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 8fll 

tinct denominations of Christians, 1 shall again ad- 
dress you as men and reasonable beings. Con- 
sider, gentlemen, the apparent iniquity, the mon- 
strous unreasonableness of the claim 1 am opposing. 
Are we not all members of the same commu- 
nity ? Have we not an equal right ? Are we not 
alike to contribute to the support of the college ? 
Whence then the pretensions of one in preference to 
the rest ? Does not every persuasion produce men 
of worth and virtue ? Why then should one be ex- 
alted and the other debased ? You, I hope, will 
consider the least infraction of your liberties as a 
prelude to greater encroachments. Such always 
was, and such ever will be the case. Recede, 
therefore, not an inch from your indisputable rights. 
You have been told it — posterity will feel it. In- 
dolence, indolence has been the source of irretriev- 
able ruin. Languor and timidity, when the pubhc is 
concerned,' are the origin of evils mighty and innu- 
merable. Why should you too late deplore your 
irresolution. No ! defeat the scheme before it is 
carried into execution. Away with so pestilent a 
project; suffer it no longer to haunt the pro- 
vince. Alas ! when shall we see the glorious flame 
of patriotism lighted up and blazing out with in- 
extinguishable lustre ? When shall we have one 
interest, and that interest be the common good V 

In the 27th number may be found a prayer com- 
posed entirely of different portions of the sacred 
volume, for the purpose of showing the impropriety 



86 THE LIFE OF 

of confining the college to the use of the Enghsh 
form. No. 46 is entitled " Of Creeds and Sys- 
tems, together with the Author's own Creed." This 
creed, which is drawn up in thirty-nine articles, is 
an attack partly upon the sectarian character of 
the Church of England, as manifested at the time, 
but more particularly upon bigotry of all denomi- 
nations ; and viewed in this light it affords a happy 
specimen of Mr. Livingston's humorous writings. 

" It is well known that some have represented 
me as an Atheist, others as a Deist, and a third 
sort as a Presbyterian. My creed will show that 
none have exactly hit it. For all which reasons, I 
shall cheerfully lay before you the articles of my 
faith. * * * 

"1. 1 believe the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament, without any foreign comments or 
human explanations but my own: for which I 
should doubtless be honoured with martyrdom, did 
I not live in a government which restrains that 
fiery zeal which would reduce a man's body to 
ashes for the illumination of his understanding. 

" 5. I believe that the word orthodox, is a hard, 
equivocal, priestly term, that has caused the effu- 
sion of more blood than all the Roman emperors 
put together. 
• " 7. 1 beheve that to defend the Christian rehgion 
is one thing, and to knock a man on the head for 
being of a different opinion is another thing. 

"11. I believe that he who feareth God, and 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. f0 

worketh righteousness will be accepted of Him, 
even though he refuse to worship any man or 
order of men into the bargain. 

"13. 1 beheve that riches, ornaments, and cere- 
monies were assumed by churches for the same 
reason that garments were invented by our first 
parents. 

" 15. I beheve that a man may be a good Chris- 
tian though he be of no sect in Christendom. 

"17. I believe that our faith, like our stomachs, 
may be overcharged, especially if we are prohib- 
ited to chew what we are commanded to swallow. 

" 37. I beheve that, was it in the power of some 
gentlemen I could name, the Independent Reflector 
had long ago been cropped and pilloried. 

" 38. I beheve that the virulence of some of the 
clergy against my speculations proceeds not from 
their affection to Christianity, which is founded on 
too firm a basis to be shaken by the freest inquiry, 
and the Divine authority of which I sincerely be- 
lieve, without receiving a farthing for saying so ; 
but from an apprehension of bringing into con- 
tempt their ridiculous claims and unreasonable 
pretensions, which may justly tremble at the slight- 
est scrutiny, and which I beheve I shall more and 
more put into a panic, in defiance of both press 
and pulpit." 

At a subsequent period he offered the following 
apology for this and other portions of his work. 

"A mighty clamour was raised against me 



88 



THE LIFE OF 



under pretence that I transgressed the bounds of my 
design, in writing against the Church of England. 
Of the falsity of this charge, whoever reads my 
weekly productions with an unprejudiced mind 
will be easily convinced. But to say something in 
vindication of myself; — 1 do declare that I never 
wrote a syllable with a view of censuring the 
church as such: I have only exposed her un- 
reasonable encroachments. When one religious 
persuasion, in defiance of the equal rights of the 
rest, and in contradiction to the plain dictates of 
law and reason, openly advances a claim destruc- 
tive of those rights ; to sit as a calm and uncon- 
cerned spectator would, in a writer of my class, 
have been a treasonable neglect of the interest of 
the community. At this conduct indeed I took the 
alarm : it was my duty, my bounden, my indispen- 
sable duty."* 

The 52d number of these essays appeared on the 
22d of November, 1753, when, as has been already 
said, the printer, Parker, suddenly refused to con- 
tinue it. A paper styled " The Occasional Rever- 
berator," had been set on foot a few weeks pre- 
vious for the purpose of sustaining the Reflector ; 
but after the publication of three or four numbers, 
this also disappeared. A writer calling himself PMo- 
Reflector was soon forbidden the columns of the 
gazette in which his communications were at first 



Pref. to Ind. Ref. page 30. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 8fl^ 

printed ; and he then repubhshed " The Craftsman," 
a sermon from the Independent Whig, with a pre- 
face more particularly suited to the time.* 

The Independent Reflector was republished, with 
a long preface, by Mr. Livingston in January of 
the next year, after repeated refusals on the part of 
printers, both in Boston and Philadelphia, to have 
any connexion with the obnoxious work ; and the 
title-page bears the words, " Printed (until tyranni- 
cally suppressed) in 1753." This preface contains 
a long list of the subjects which it was the author's 
intention, had his paper continued, to have dis- 
cussed; and some of them are well worthy of no- 
tice, as showing the germ of that free and full discus- 
sion of all matters connected with the public interest 
which effected the revolution, and which is yet far 
from having reached its goal. It is not difficult to 
imagine which side of these various questions 
he would have advocated. 

" No. LVIII. Remarks on the 39th article of the 
Instructions to his late Excellency Sir Danvers 
Osborn.f 

* This last work I have not been able to find. William 
Smith, afterwards provost of the College of Philadelphia, also pub- 
lished in this year a pamphlet entitled "A General Idea of the 
College of Mirania" — A Utopian institution — with reference to 
the New- York establishment. 

t An article of the royal instructions to a preceding governor 
requiring the assembly to grant the chief-magistrate a permanent 
support. This scheme, highly obnoxious as making the governors 
completely independent of the colony, had been before attempted 

M 



90 



THE LIFE OF 



"No. LXXVII. fhe Necessity of an established 
Colony Constitution. 

"No. LXXIX. The equal Rights of British 
Subjects in the Plantations to the privileges en- 
joyed by their fellow-subjects in Great Britain 
asserted and vindicated. 

" No. CVIII. Of the Importation of Negroes." 

The matter of the college was shortly afterwards 
brought to a crisis. In May, 1754, the trustees, 
stimulated by the offer of a tract of land from 
Trinity Church, made solely upon condition that 
the charter should contain the two sectarian provi- 
sions, as to the president and the liturgy, petitioned 
Lieutenant-governor Delancey, who was then at 
the head of affairs, to incorporate the institution 
on those terms. Mr. Livingston alone, deserted 
even by his colleagues of the Dutch church,* 
presented a protest against the prayer of the 
petitioners. The two following letters may be 
found interesting, as connected with the same 
subject. The testimony of the writer as to the 
early state of our college is not, however, it must 
be remembered, that of entirely uninterested 
witness. 

without success. It created almost the only serious difficulty 
that existed between this province and the mother country before 
the passage of the Stamp Act ; but the royal directions were in 
no one instance complied with. 

* Benj. NicoU, one of the trustees from the Dutch Church, 
appears to have been eager for the passage of the charter, if I 
may judge from a (MS.) letter from him to W. Kempe, 24th Oct. 
1754. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 91" 

" TO MR. CHAUNCEY WHITTELSEY, AT NEW-HAVEN. 

"New- York, August 22cl, 1754. 
" Dear Sir, 
"Your brother did me the honour of waiting 
upon me this morning with your respects, and told 
me you desired from me a state of our college, 
and what was, or was like to be its plan and con- 
stitution. It was opened last June, in the vestry- 
room of the school-house belonging to Trinity 
Church. It consists of seven students, the majority 
of whom were admitted, though utterly unqualified, 
in order to make a flourish. They meet for 
morning prayers in the church, and are like to 
make as great a progress in the liturgy as in the 
sciences. The doctor's advertisement promises 
stupendous matters. He is even to teach the 
knowledge of all nature in the heavens above us. 
Whether he intends to descend as low as he soars 
on high, and conduct his disciples to the bottom 
of Tartarus, he doth not inform the public. We 
have at present no other teacher, nor have I heard 
of any in prospect. I have acquainted the trustees 
with the contents of your last letter, but we have 
had no meeting since I received it. The plan on 
which they would fix it, you will see by the paper 
enclosed. They expected the governor would 
have granted the charter on their preferring a 
petition, and I believe they had some assurances to 
that purpose ; but the noise and uneasiness created 
by the protest which I published, on purpose to 



92 THE LIFE OF 

create such noise and uneasiness, have so puzzled 
his h — r (who, hke a thorough pohtician, cares no 
further about the granting or rejecting the petition, 
than as the one or the other doth best promote his 
pohtical interest), that he has hitherto deferred 
his answer. The protest has indeed excited so 
great a fermentation in the province, that in con- 
sequence of the reasons therein urged, and some 
other steps that had been taken by me and my 
friends for rousing the people to an opposition, 
several of the members in our present session of 
Assembly are come with petitions from their con- 
stituents to them, against granting any further fund 
for the college till its constitution and government 
be settled by an act of legislation. The adverse 
party are also making interest with the members, 
to nod over the affair and leave it to the manage- 
ment of the trustees. But I believe we have a 
majority who will enter into an examination of 
their conduct, and vote for incorporating it by Act 
of Assembly. Had the printers not been overawed 
from pubhshing any thing on the subject in their 
newspapers, I am confident we should have raised 
so great a fervour in the provinces, as nothing but 
a catholic scheme would have been able to ex- 
tinguish. However, a new press will be set up in 
the fall, and then I am persuaded (if not then too 
late) the trumpet will not cease to blow in Zion. 

" After the session, 1 shall acquaint you with the 
event of this affair. Some of the members are 
greatly exasperated against the trustees, but they 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 9m 

have better hearts than heads, and 'are browbeat 
and nonplused by some of the house of better 
capacity than themselves. But they are lately 
inspired with much fortitude by the promise of a 
foreign aid, which I believe will render them a 
match for their antagonists. The act proposed 
and every other requisite will be prepared to their 
hands. 

« With respect to my own transactions in this 
matter, as I have not been without the thanks of 
some, I have not wanted the malediction of others. 
Those who were at the bottom of the partial plan 
I opposed, and who thought it just on the point of 
being carried into execution, when 1 published the 
very scheme they had, not a fortnight before, abso- 
lutely disowned from having in view, will never 
forgive me ; as this effectually prevented all possi- 
bility any longer to conceal their intentions of 
monopohzing the management of the college, they 
icaxed exceeding ivrath, and I repaid their anger by 
laughing at their resentment. I am, &c. 

"Wm. Livingston." 

" to the rev. mr. noah welles.* 

"New-York, October 18th, 1754. 
" Dear Sir, 

Tt" Tr *??• "Tf 

" In relation to Mr. Nicoll's letter on the 
subject of the charter. for our intended college, 

* Noah Welles, a Presbyterian minister, whose name occurs 
frequently in this volume, a classmate of Mr, Livingston, was 



94 THE LIFE OF 

if our governor made the declaration you men- 
tioned, all that 1 can infer from it is, that he 
appears to be as great a master of the art of 
tergiversation as the most consummate politician. 
It is no longer ago than last Thursday night that 
I conversed with him on that topic, and though he 
then talked like a man vi^ho had a double part to 
act, yet it appeared to me that he intended I should 
understand him as being resolved not to grant the 
petition. But my hopes are in the House of 
Representatives, and 1 am morally certain that the 
college vv^ould gain nothing by the charter, as the 
Assembly would never vote for the appropriating 
the money to a college on that plan. 

" The Dutch Church has preferred a petition to 
the Assembly (now sitting), praying for a professor 
of divinity in the college, to be chosen and ap- 
pointed by them. Which petition, for the reasons 
set forth in the same, I doubt not will be granted, 
and will not fail of having a good effect even 
should it be rejected. If it meets with success, 
it will secure to the Dutch a Calvinistic pro- 
fessor, and diminish that badge of distinction to 
which the Episcopalians are so zealously aspiring. 
Should it be rejected, as it will meet with opposi- 
tion from the sticklers for a party college, that 
will animate the Dutch against them, and convince 



afterwards settled at Stamford, in Connecticut, and died on the 
31st Dec. 1776, in the 57th year of his age. MS. letter to Gov. 
Livingston. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. WB 

them that all their pretences to sisterhood and 

identity were fallacious and hypocritical. 

# # # * # 

"I wish you joy on the nativity of another daugh- 
ter, though our having so many of the sex, promises 
not fair for many alliances by marriage. 

" I am, &c. 

"Wm. Livingston." 

A pamphlet was shortly afterwards published, 
entitled " A brief Vindication of the Proceedings 
of the Trustees, relating to the College, containing 
a sufficient Answer to the late famous Protest, 
with its twenty unanswerable reasons." The alle- 
gations of this work, which charged Mr. Living- 
ston, as secretary to the board of trustees, with 
making false entries on their minutes, were denied 
under oath by himself and Scott, and no proof 
appears to have been produced in support of the 
accusation. 

The opposition was fruitless, and De Lancey, 
though as it appears with some reluctance,* 
granted the charter to the institution, under the 
name of King's College, in'October following ; and 
Mr. Livingston, in the vain hope, perhaps, of 
silencing his opposition, was appointed one of the 
governors under it.t It might have been sup- 

* Vid. Smith. 

t "As I could not conscientiously take the oaths of office," 
says Mr. Livingston (letter of 12th Jan. 1756), '« I never frequented 
their meetings." 



96 



THE LIFE OF 



posed that this measure would have terminated 
the controversy, but the question was, as we 
shall see, soon afterwards revived in a somewhat 
different shape. 

It may be here added that twenty years subse- 
quent to this period, the ardent declamation and 
vehement invective of the Reflector furnished 'the 
students of Princeton college subjects for their 
exercises in elocution.* We ought also to notice, 
what the tone and temper of the paper might lead 
us to overlook, that it shows great acquaintance 
with modern and ancient classical literature, and 
contains a fund of polemical learning. 

The following letter may be considered not alto- 
gether without interest, and it is valuable as prov- 
ing that while actively engaged in the stormy dis- 
putes of the city, Mr. Livingston did not lose sight 
of the general interests of the colony, which pre- 
sented at this time a much more lowering aspect. 

" TO THE REV. DAVm THOMPSON, IN AMSTERDAM. 

"October 28th, 1754. 
" Rev. Sir, 

" Your letter to Mr. Van Wyck was shown me by 
one of his friends, and yours to Mr. Burr by a 
brother of mine (Mr. Peter Van Brugh Living- 
ston), who I think generally encloses his letters for 
you to some of his correspondents at Amsterdam. 
I am extremely obliged to you for the honourable 
mention you are pleased to make of me in both 

* MS. letter from Mr. Madison, 12th Feb. 1831. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 97 

these letters, which is vastly beyond any thing to 
which I have the vanity to pretend, * * more espe- 
cially the inclination which you intimate in the last 
of the above mentioned letters of entering into a 
correspondence with me, which I esteem a singular 

honour. 

* * * * * * 

" As to our situation in respect of the French, it 

is truly perilous and deplorable. 

* * * * * * 

" In attaching the Indian natives to their interest, 
they (the French) spare no labour, no costs. 
The lower sort of their people they allow pre- 
miums to intermarry among them ; and encourage 
others to teach their children to hunt and live 
after the Indian fashion. By these means they are 
early inured to toil and fatigue, learn all the wiles 
which the Indians use in their wars, and imbibe the 
same savage and unrelenting disposition. In their 
presents to the natives, the French are extremely 
expensive, and at the same time fail not to awe 
them with proper disciphne.* The Indian castles 
[towns] they fortify, and supply with missionaries, 
who practise incredible arts to convert them to 
popery. I shall only give you two instances of 
these pious frauds to serve for an example. They 
persuade these people that the Virgin Mary was 
born at Paris, and that our Saviour was crucified 

* " Notre nation," says Charlevoix, the Jesuit historian of Can- 
ada, " est la seule qui "ait eu le secret de gagner I'affection des 
Americains." 

N 



98 THE LIFE OF 

at London by the English. A French Indian com- 
ing to Oswego, and discoursing with some of our 
traders on the subject of the Romish faith, insisted 
on its being the true rehgion, seeing his father 
confessor could work miracles, for that he had 
darkened the sun by a bare word of command. 
* * * The superstitious rites and fantastic trum- 
peries of popery are so agreeable to the natural 
genius of the aborigines, who are fond of a showy 
and mechanical religion, that the Romish priests 
are much more successful in Christianizing (or 
rather papifying) them than the Protestant clergy. 
1 must not on this occasion omit mentioning their 
canonizing a squaw by the name of St. Catharine, 
which piece of Jesuitical craft greatly endeared the 
Romish faith to the pagans, who by that means, 
besides the common benefit of addressing their 
prayers to the rest of the saints in the calendar, 
obtained the supernumerary advantage of a par- 
ticular advocate and intercessor of their own. 

" I was last June at Albany at one of the most 
famous Indian treaties that was ever held with 
the Six Nations. Their speaker, a consummate 
orator, told our governor and the commissioners 
from the other provinces: — 'What reason have 
we to expect you should protect us, when you ap- 
pear careless about your own defenceless situa- 
tion.^ Your frontiers lie open and exposed — 
your forts are ruinous — your soldiers old and de- 
crepit, and you act more like women than men.' 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 99 

" At the treaty before mentioned, the several pro- 
vinces concerted a plan for a general union, which 
has since been transmitted to England for the rati- 
fication of the parliament ; and which I hope, by the 
Divine blessing, may enable us to repel the en- 
croachments of an ambitious and barbarous foe. 

" In the mean time be pleased, in the catalogue of 
your most faithful friends and humble servants, to 
rank 

" Wm. Livingston." 

In March of this year,* we find Mr. Livingston 
engaged with his brother Philip, his brother-in-law 

* This perhaps is the must appropriate place for introducing the 
following details of the life of John Morke, an individual whose 
name occurs on the journals of the Assembly of New- York dur- 
ing the year 1754. (Journal for 14th and 21 st November.) They 
are in nowise connected with my immediate subject, yet as I 
have some original papers relating to this singular personage, 
and as every new light thrown either upon the private or public 
history of our colonial period is valuable, I may be excused for 
inserting the substance of them in an episodial note. 

Jens Morke, or John Morke, as his name is translated, a Dane 
by nation, was born about the year 1690. He probably received 
an education somewhat superior to his class, though his MSS. 
show no great literary proficiency. The earliest document 
among the papers to which I have referred is a certificate of 
admeasurement, and license of enrolment for his ship the Sarah 
and Elizabeth, from the commissioners of the revenue board of 
Denmark, dated 14th Jan. 1717. Early in life he abandoned 
his native country to pursue his calling, that of the sea, under 
the British flag, entering probably the merchant service. Soon 
afterwards he came to this country, and in 1724, being in Eng- 
land, he received from the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon a 



100 THE LIFE OP 

Mr. Alexander (afterwards Lord Stirling), Mr. Scott, 
and one or two others, in laying the foundation of 
a city library, the same that now bears the name 



letter of attorney, in which he is called " John Morke, of Boston, 
in New-England," authorizing him to grant leases of a tract of land 
sixty miles Square, lying to the east of Connecticut river, upon 
Long-Island Sound, which had been conveyed by the council of 
Plymouth, in 1635, to the great grandfather of the Duke, James, 
Marquis of Hamilton ; but which, owing to the civil wars, as the 
power recites, had not been appropriated by him or his descend- 
ants. 

Under an agreement with the duke, by which he was to re- 
ceive a salary of somewhat over 200/. per annum, Morke sailed 
for New-England. Nothing appears, however, to have been ac- 
complished for the benefit of his principal ; the Dane probably 
finding some difficulty in persuading the sturdy squatters of Con- 
necticut to admit a claim which had lain dormant for three gene- 
rations. In 1729 we find him pursuing his original vocation, 
and plying as captain of a small sloop between Boston and 
Albany. 

In August, 1732, he sailed in his own brigantine, the Dolphin, 
from Boston for Glasgow, and remained in or about England till 
August, 1737, when, under an agreement with John Winthrop of 
London, he returned to work a black-lead mine at Tanteasques, 
New-England. Here he became embroiled with some of Win- 
throp's agents, was maltreated, as he asserts, by Mrs. Winthrop, 
and finally left the place, in about two years after his arrival, for 
England. This is a specimen of his success in every thing he 
commenced. He was evidently one of those unfortunate crea- 
tures, who, owing to what fatalists call ill-luck, and others term 
want of skill and tact, although endowed both with intellect and 
activity, perpetually fail in every thing they undertake, and floun- 
der on from enterprise to enterprise, till loss of fortune and repu- 
tation is followed up by loss of life. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 101 

of the Society Library of New-York, and which is 
at present a larger and more flourishing institution 
than any in the country of so late a date, with the 



I next find Morke, in January, 1740, entering into a formal 
contract with one James Graham, wine merchant of Lambeth, 
by which he binds himself, in consideration of the secret of extract- 
ing silver from black-lead having.been revealed to him by Graham, 
to procure for the latter certain quantities of that commodity, 
and never to disclose the process except on his death-bed. This 
agreement seems completely to have unsettled the brain of the 
unlucky captain, and the plans and schemes that remain among 
his papers are among the most ludicrous offsprings of a vision- 
ary mind. 

In 1742, he submitted to the commissioners of the Navy-Board 
the sketch of a mode of " Destroying or compelling the surren- 
der of any fleet or number of enemy's ships, whether at sea or 
in port." It appears to have been, however, but coldly received. 
This was buc ihe harbinger of an infinity of schemes which 
chased each other rapidly through his head ; the titles of a 
few will convey some idea of his intellect. " Scheme of a float- 
ing dock — Plan to cure butter — To cure leather — To crush the 
French in America — To save men's lives who fall overboard — A 
plough to make three furrows at once — Pipes to convey water — 
An expeditious mode of surveying — A mode of covering ships — 
Of clearing land — To clean white gloves — To crush the Pre- 
tender !" 

So far as his motions can be traced, Morke remained in England, 
memorializing the government, and tormenting the commissioners 
of every department until 1753, when he made a short trip to 
the Morth American colonies, returning in the course of the 
same year. In April, 1754, he received a letter recommendatory 
from the Marquis of Halifax to Governor Shirley (which may 
however have been a Bellerophon-Iike epistle), and sailed for 

* See Smith. 



102 THE LIFE OF 

single exception of the Boston Athengeum. Instead 
of boasting over-much, however, of its actual 
condition, ought we not rather to ask why our 
establishment, in the heart of the American me- 
tropohs, should yield even to the venerable collec- 
tion of Harvard ? 

To this or the preceding year belongs an anec- 
dote, which well illustrates the inflexibility of Mr. 
Livingston's character, in all matters where truth 
or consistency was involved. News reached New- 
York, that a troop of comedians were coming 
to the city, and the principal gentlemen of the 
place, among whom was the subject of this me- 
moir, taking the matter into consideration, came 
to the conclusion that theatrical entertainments be- 
longed to a class of luxuries injurious to the colony. 



New-England — his illustrious patron no doubt overjoyed at 
having despatched so troublesome an applicant. Shirley passed 
him over to Delancey, and Morke w^as kindly received at New- 
York by Kempe, then attorney-general. His scheme of a 
floating battery M'as submitted to the Assembly, but the session 
closed before any thing was done in his behalf. Disappointed, 
but not disheartened, the captain proceeded in the following 
spring to lay this his favourite plan before Dinwiddle, governor of 
the colony of Virginia. He was here received with equal indif- 
ference, and it was made manifest, in spite of the humane efforts 
of John Blair, then a member of the Assembly, that nothing would 
be done to assist him. This was the last mortification he was 
destined to experience ; impoverished, enfeebled by a paralytic 
attack, worn out in mind and body, this unfortunate visionary 
died at WiUiamsburgh, on the 11th of .July, 1755. His papers 
left with Kempe have furnished the materials of this sketch. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 103 

and which ought not to be patronized. They ac- 
cordingly entered into a mutual agreement for them- 
selves and their families, that in no case would they 
attend the performances. When, however, the 
actors arrived, and proved to be accomphshed in 
their vocation, the remonstrances of the officers 
and attaches of the government became so loud, 
and the entreaties of the young beauties so urgent, 
that their united forces gradually vanquished the 
opposition of the worthy burgesses, — till, one by 
one withdrawing from the compact, Mr. Livingston 
fomid himself alone in his opposition to the drama. 
Neither fashion nor the entreaties of his daughters 
could, however, make him depart from his resolu- 
tion, and so long as the company remained, so 
long were his family tantalized by the description 
of pleasures which they were not allowed to enjoy. 
The advocates of a sectarian college had, as we 
have said, partially succeeded, but an act of the 
Assembly now became necessary to transfer the 
funds originally vested in trustees to the hands of the 
new governors under the charter, and here again 
they were met by their persevering opponents. 
The project of a separate paper having failed, the 
leaders of the liberal party, by dint of much per- 
suasion (what more solid inducements does not 
appear), prevailed upon Hugh Gaine, the editor of 
the New-York Mercury, to admit their essays into 
his columns, which had been hitherto monopo- 
lized by the Episcopalians. The following letter 
is comiccted with this subject. 



104 THE LIFE OF 

" TO MR. NOAH WELLES, STAMFORD, CONN. 

« December 7th, 1754. 
" Dear Sir, 

" We have at length with great trouble got Mr. 
Gaine to enter into an agreement with us to allot 
us the first part of his newspaper for the publica- 
tion of our thoughts, which we do under the name of 
the Watch Tower. As this paper will be a kind of 
medium between the Reflector and the Spectators, 
which you told me you would be willing to assist 
in, I should be extremely glad you would bear a 
part in the compositions. We propose, indeed, to 
write chiefly upon politics, and to open the eyes of 
this province respecting many measures, the con- 
cealment of which is the only thing that keeps 
them from being defeated. But as our scheme is 
very comprehensive, we shall have no objections 
against now and then publishing a paper merely 
speculative, though the greater the turn which can 
be given to it to suit our circumstances, the better 
it will be rehshed by the pubhc. The aflair of the 
college is not yet settled. The governor has 
passed a charter for a church-college, and the 
Assembly voted to print a bill, which was brought 
in by my brother, for a free one, but whether it 
will pass the House we know not. At the begin- 
ning of the session we had a majority, but as the 
governor interests himself warmly in the matter to 
support his charter, some of our party began to 
flag, for which reason we thought it most proper 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 105 

not to run the risk of a vote, but to take it from 
the committee, with a resolve to have it printed, 
hoping that the pubhc, by comparing the charter 
with the bill, will give the preference to the latter. 
So that we intend to improve the time between 
this and the next session, to keep the province 
warm in so momentous an affair. The Dutch 
begin to see, and the designs of our adversaries 
give a more general umbrage than ever. 

"As almost all the authors of the Watch Tower 
are men of business, I hope you will not refuse us 
your assistance, for we would by no means suffer a 
week to shp without something, though we could 
not always furnish a paper on our public contro- 
versies. For if we once drop it, it may be diffi- 
cult to get the printer in the same humour. He is 
a fickle fellow, and easily intimidated by our oppo- 
nents. However, we have entered into articles of 
agreement, in writing, which we hope he will not 
break through. 

" I am. Sir, yours, &c. 

" Wm. Livingston." 

The first number of The Watch Tower ap- 
peared on the 25th November, 17.54. This series 
of essays was, as had been the case with the Re- 
flector, the production of various hands, superin- 
tended by Mr. Livingston, and the greater part of 
them, so far as can be determined by the style, were 
communicated by him. They are not absolutely 
confined to the subject of the college, and we find 



106 THE LIFE OF 

papers on " Good Judges" — " The Encroachments 
of the French" — " The Liberty of the Press," and 
various collateral topics. 

The advocates of the charter-college, in the 
mean time, as may be gathered from the foregoing 
letter, met with earnest opposition in the Assem- 
bly, and a disposition was shown by that body to 
treat the question impartially upon its merits. The 
petition of the trustees, and Mr. Livingston's protest, 
were entered at large upon their journal, and a bill 
drawn by Mr. Scott, for establishing an institution 
uponbroader principles, was introduced by the repre- 
sentative of the Livingston Manor. Neither party, 
however, was desirous of bringing the question to 
an immediate issue, and the House adjourned on the 
7th December, 1754, Avithout coming to a decision. 
Mr. Scott's bill, in the mean time, was printed, and 
circulated throughout the province, that the inhab- 
itants might have an opportunity of comparing the 
merits of the established and the proposed institu- 
tions. It is unnecessary to go more at length 
into the details of this controversy, which every 
day became more and more violent. The following 
extract from the Mercury, for the 3d of February, 
175.5, will show the excited state of feeling on the 
subject. 

« The Watch Tower— No. XI. 

" As I sat the other evening, smoking my pipe, 
and ruminating in the elbow-chair on what would 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 107 

probably be the situation of this province about 
twenty years hence, should a certain faction suc- 
ceed in their meditated encroachments on our lib- 
erties, I fell into a kind of methodical dream, which 
disposed all my contemplations into the following 
vision. Methought I saw one of the printer's boys 
entering my room and delivering me a newspaper, 
the reading of which made so strong an impres- 
sion upon my mind, that I question whether I have 
forgot a single article of its contents, and as nearly 
as I can recollect it ran thus. 

" The New-York Journal, No. 15, published hy Authority. 
6th February, 1775. 

" Extract of a letter from a clergyman in the county of Albany 
to his grace the Bishop of New- York : — ' I make no doubt but 
by the blessing of God, and your lordship's rigorous measures, 
we shall reduce this obstinate colony to the obedience of the 
church. They are a stubborn, contumacious generation, and natu- 
rally averse to prelacy. Hence the business of the tithes goes 
much against the grain.' * * * 

" Extract from the votes and proceedings of the General Assem- 
bly, in their last session : — ' The speaker left the chair, and 
attended his excellency with the House ; and being returned, he 
resumed the chair and reported to the House, that his excellency 
in the presence of the Council and the members of the House, 
had been pleased to give his assent to four acts passed this ses- 
sion ; the titles whereof are as follows : An act for the better 
ascertaining and the more easy recovery of tithes. — An act 
against reading Calvinistical and other heretical books. — An 
act to disable all dissenters from sitting in the General As- 
sembly.' * * * 

"Yesterday the Dutch performed Divine worship for the last 
time, in the new Dutch church, the whole congregation consisting 
of about 150 adults. It is said that Dominie Van Haaren, the * 



108 



THE LIFE OF 



minister, particularly bewaTled the ruin of that once flourishing 
congregation, and reminded them of their folly in having so long 
been deluded by their enemies, after such repeated warnings of 
their artful designs, of which, and some other unwarrantable 
liberties, it is said the government will take suitable notice. 

"On Wednesday last, the Reverend Mr. LambertusVanSchenk- 
le, Dutch professor of divinity in the college of New-York, 
was deposed from his office for saying in one of his lectures, 
* That Christ is the supream head of the Christian church ;' and 
in order to prevent the like heresy for the future, the governors of 
the said college have passed a resolve that none but an Episcopa 
lian be for the future promoted to the said professorship. * * * 

"W." 

The 52d and last number of The Watch Tower 
appeared in the Mercury, for the 17th November, 
1755, while the application of the governors was 
still pending. The last papers contain an address 
to the new chief-magistrate, Sir Charles Hardy, 
who had just arrived, going at length into a narra- 
tive of all the facts connected with the charter, and 
the measure then before the legislature. The 
paper thus closes. 

" As I had no other view in commencing writer 
than barely to defend the public rights of that 
society of which I am a member, it was always 
my intention to discontinue the publication of my 
weekly labours as soon as the safety of the cause 
in which 1 was embarked would permit. The 
apparent success my papers have met with in 
removing the vulgar prejudices of some, and ex- 
posing the latent injustice of others, rendered the 
task delightful to me, in spite of all the calumny 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 109 

of my enemies, or the power and interest of those 
whose measures I had justly undertaken to oppose. 

* * * That I have been vigilant in my 
station, the event of my undertakings has suf- 
ficiently evinced. The highest hopes of my an- 
tagonists are entirely blasted, and our represent- 
atives, ever tender of the liberty and privileges of 
their constituents, have sufficiently demonstrated 
their aversion to a party-college; and even its 
most vigorous advocates have, in a manner, given 
up the cause. No valuable end can therefore be 
attauied at present by the continuation of my 
labours; for which reason 1 shall suspend them for 
the future, reserving only my right of being heard 
with candour and impartiality whenever the in- 
terests of my country shall occasionally require 
my appearance in print. In justice to my printer, 
I must confess that he has promised me at all 
times a place in his paper, and as often as the 
conduct of an aspiring party renders it necessary 
to expose their measures, I am determined to 
sound the alarm, though I flatter myself that 
bigotry will hide its head in shame under the ad- 
ministration of Sir Charles Hardy." 

Mr. Livingston thus speaks of the termination 
of the work, in a note, dated 26th November, 1755, 
to Dr. Lambertus De Ronde,* a minister of the 

* This gentleman remained true to the cause, which at this 
early date he had espoused. He quilted New- York in the 
summer of 1775, and retired to New- Jersey, in very straitened 
circumstances, where he was still in 1780. 



110 



THE LIFE OF 



Dutch church. Mr. Livingston at this time spoke 
Latin imperfectly, but wrote it with fluency. " Ami- 
cus noster invictusque pro re pubhca pugnator 
(the Watch Tower), in ipso aetatis ac victoriarum 
flore, septimane superiore diem clausit extremum. 
Nee ahenis hostihbusque viribus interfectus est, 
sed lubens et more triumphantium, memorque pa- 
triae atque pristinag dignitatis suag, pugnans vic- 
torque a prasho decessit. Hanc ob causam plus 
nobis quam ohm est otii. " 

About this time various pubhcations issued from 
the colonial press, in support of the same cause. 
Among other works, the trial of McKeemie, a 
dissenting minister treated with great rigour, if not 
oppression, under Lord Cornbury's administration, 
was reprinted with a preface by Mr. Livingston ; 
and the Watch Tower itself was, I beheve, re- 
published in a collected form not long after it 
ceased to appear periodically. The expenses of 
these efforts to enlighten the pubhc mind were 
probably defrayed by a few persons, but seem not 
to have borne hardly on any individual.* 

The result of this angry controversy was not so 
gratifying to the dissenting party, as might be 
gathered from the tone of their last publication. 
The honors of success were divided with their 
opponents- The governor. Hardy, is said to have 

* I have a receipt from Hugh Gaine, dated 28th Nov., 1755, 
for 15?., paid him as the proportion of Mr. Livingston and Mr. 
Alexander, for printing the trial of McKeemie and the Watch 
Tower. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. Ill 

received the deputation, which presented him the 
address of the editor of the Watch Tower with 
some coolness, and to have been inchned to favour 
the Episcopahans.* The subject remained, how- 
ever, untouched until November, 1756, when a 
bill was brought into the Assembly, vesting one 
half of the funds held by the trustees, in the 
governors of the charter college, and appropri- 
ating the other moiety for the purposes of erecting 
a jail and pest-house. It was introduced on the 
27th of November, and approved on the first of the 
next month. The rapidity with which so im- 
portant and long-contested an act passed might 
excite suspicion that some parliamentary stratagem 
ensured its success, but no such language is used 
by the opponents of the college in their subsequent 
publications. They uniformly speak in language 
of high self-gratulation of this partial victory, as 
the triumph, although incomplete, of enlightened 
and assiduous exertion over sectarian ambition, 
backed by the influence of office ; and when we 
reflect that these funds were raised with the ex- 
press intention of devoting them to the college, 
the diversion of any portion may justly be con- 
sidered as a victory. The college was the greatest 
suflferer by the controversy, and it is probably to 
the opposition of influential men, so unwisely ex- 
cited, that its tardy growth was owing, and that it 
could hardly be said to have an existence as a 

* Vid. Chandler's life of Dr. Johnson. 



112 THE LIFE OF 

literary institution of the first class until after the 
revolution. 

On the 20th February, 1756, at the age of sixty- 
six years, Mrs. Catharine Livingston, the mother 
of the subject of these pages, died at New-York. 
Little is known of her, save that she was remarkable 
for her high temper, and for those simple and thrifty 
habits to which her Dutch pedigree entitled her. 

It is somewhat surprising that we should not be 
more proud of our partial descent from a nation 
at one time so conspicuous in European history. 
We are accustomed to speak of the unostentatious 
and commercial habits of the Dutch settlers of 
New-York in a tone which is rarely apphed to the 
citizens of the mother country. The Holland 
dynasty of New-Amsterdam was, it is true, short- 
lived and disastrous ; but it would be curious 
to inquire how far our opinions on this subject 
have been influenced by Mr. Irving's mock history 
of our city. Pretended facts have often proved 
to be fiction, but this is the first time that ac- 
knowledged fiction has been adopted as fact. 
The exquisite satire is quoted as grave authority, 
and the ludicrous images of Knickerbacker are 
incorporated with our historical lore. The subject 
is too comprehensive to be discussed in this place, 
but 1 would recommend any who are tenacious of 
their Dutch ancestry to some very liberal and 
philosophical remarks, connected with this matter, 
in Mr. Graham's History of the United States, a 
work, the unfinished state of which is much to be 
regretted. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 113 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Livingston publishes an Eulogy of the Rex). Aaron Burr — 
Writes The Review of Military Operations in America — Verses 
— Is returned to the Assembly in 1759 — Cause of Forsey and 
Cunningham, 1764 — Publishes The Sentinel — The Stamp Act 
— Controversy on the subject of an American Episcopate — 
Mr. Livingston publishes a Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff 
in 1767- — Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Cooper — Edits The 
American Whig in 1768-69 — Publishes a Satire upon Lieut. 
Governor Colden — The Moot. 

The Reverend Aaron Burr, president of the col- 
lege of New-Jersey, father of the former Vice- 
President of the United States, died in September, 
1757. He was a friend and correspondent of Mr. 
Livingston, and an eulogy of him was published by 
the latter immediately afterwards.* The chief 
topics of the praise of the deceased are his love of 
country, and the strong religious tone of his charac- 

* The original title ran thus — A funeral Eulogium on the 
Reverend Mr. Aaron Burr, late president of the college of New- 
Jersey. By William Livingston, Esquire. 

Of comfort no man speak. 
Let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs, 
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes. 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. 

Shakspeare. 

Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus : 
Omnibus est vitse, sed famam extendere factis. 
Hoc virtutis opus. 

P 



114 THE LIFE OF 

ter. The pamphlet 'was reprinted in Boston the 
subsequent year, which we must ascribe to the re- 
putation either of the author or his subject. As 
a proof of the high merits of Mr. Burr, it may still 
be considered valuable, but as a literary produc- 
tion, it is not in anywise remarkable, and deserves 
no particular notice. 

In the same year, though a few months previous, 
appeared a work by Mr. Livingston, which, con- 
nected with subjects of more general interest than 
his previous writings, obtained a much wider cir- 
culation. It was first pubhshed at London, by 
Dodsley, and the original title was as follows: 
" A Review of the Military Operations in North 
America from the commencement of French hos- 
tilities, on the frontiers of Virginia in 1753, to the 
surrender of Oswego, on the 14th of April, 1756, 
interspersed with various observations, characters, 
and anecdotes necessary to give light into the con- 
duct of American transactions in general, and 
more especially into the political management of 
affairs in New-York, in a Letter to a Nobleman." 

In this work Mr. Livingston is said,* I know not 
on what authority, to have been assisted by Wil- 
liam Smith and John Morine Scott. For the facts 
which it contains, he was probably in a considera- 
ble degree indebted to his brother-in-law, Mr. Alex- 
ander, afterwards Lord Stirhng, who was about 
this time secretary to General Shirley ; and agree- 

* Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. vol. vii., where this pamphlet is re- 
published. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 115 

ing, as he is known to have, with the two persons 
first named in their views of the pohtics of the prov- 
ince, it may be supposed that they took an inter- 
est, perhaps an active one, in its composition and 
progress, but the work as it now stands bears 
strong marks of being the production of a single 
hand. The internal evidence is indeed so com- 
plete, that even without the author's assertions, 
which are positive, 1 should consider it more prob- 
able that it was written by any one of the three 
already named, than by them conjointly. 

To go at length into an analysis of this pam- 
phlet, would require a much more complete ac- 
count of the situation of New-York, at that period, 
than belongs to the present work. It is sufficient 
to say, that the colony was divided into two great 
parties. The one, comprising the body of the 
Episcopahans, headed* by James De Lancey, was 
at the time predominant in the Legislature. 
Among the leaders of the opposition, which em- 
braced a portion of the Dutch congregation, and 
the mass of the English dissenters, the members 
of the Livingston family were perhaps the most 
prominent. Close examination shows us that 
these two factions contained the germ of the whig 
and tory parties of the revolution. This can be 
perceived more easily in the subsequent course of 
the leaders, than in the opinions they at this early 
period advocated. There were exceptions on both 
sides, but a great majority of the De Lancey sec- 
tion remained in New- York after 1776, under the 



116 THE LIFE OF 

protection of the British. Ohver De Lancey was 
made a brigadier-general in the Enghsh ranks. 
The Livingstons, on the contrary, with their friends, 
almost to a man, took the opposite side in the 
revolutionary, as they had in the colonial struggles. 

Sir Wilham Johnson, an adherent of the De 
Lancey party, received a great share of the scanty 
honours of the American campaigns of 1755 and 
'56, while Shirley, during a part of the time com- 
mander in chief, and in some points of view a rival 
of the lieutenant governor of New-York, became 
very obnoxious to his faction. He was at least 
unfortunate, and both at home and throughout the 
colonies was made the object of severe censure 
and invective. 

The opposition in the province of New-York, by 
whom Johnson was considered only a lucky subor- 
dinate, and Shirley looked upon as a wise and brave, 
though unfortunate man, stepped forward to support 
the failing credit of the latter, and the pamphlet of 
which we have just spoken was pubhshed with this 
design. It is dated New-York, 20th September, 
1756. The manuscript was first given to the press 
in England through the hands of Mr. Alexander, and 
the work was immediately afterwards reprinted in 
the colonies. It is written with abihty and per- 
spicuity, and throws great light upon the colonial 
politics of New-York. Allowance is however to 
be made for its bitter attacks upon the character 
of De Lancey, Pownal, and Johnson. It is cited by 
Minot, in his History of Massachusetts, and has a 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 117 

permanent place among those original authorities 
which form the groundwork of our provincial 
annals. Smith says of it, although his testimony 
as that of an interested witness is perhaps to be 
taken with some deductions, " No reply was ever 
made to this pamphlet ; coming out when America 
was little known, and transactions here still less, 
it was universally read and talked of in London, 
and worked consequences of private and pubhc 
utility. General Shirley emerged from a load of 
obloquy. His extensive designs acquired advo- 
cates; his successors became cautious and vigi- 
lant ; party-spirit less assuming, and the multitude 
so enhghtened, that several changes were made 
on the next dissolution."* 

And now let us vary the dull record of political 
and polemical controversy for a gentler theme. 
The following lines by Mr. Livingston are without 
date, but though they were probably written before 
the period at which we have arrived, they find 
their most appropriate place here. Although far 
from faultless, they are graceful and poetical, and 
would scarcely be supposed to flow from the 
vehement and troubled source of the effusions we 
have just examined. 

Soon as I saw Eliza's blooming charms, 

I long'd to clasp the fair one in my arms ; 

Her ev'ry feature prov'd a pointed dart, 

That pierc'd with pleasing pain my wounded heart : 

• Ed. 1830, vol. ii. p. 311. 



118 THE LIFE OF 

And yet this beauty, (it transcends belief) 
This blooming beauty is an arrant thief. 
Attend ; her numerous thefts I will rehearse 
In honest narrative and faithful verse. 

From the bright splendour of the noon-day sky 
She stole the sparkling lustre of her eye. 
Her cheeks, though lovely red, still more t' adorn, 
She filch'd the blushes of the orient morn. 
T' embalm her lips she robb'd the honey-dew ; 

T' increase their bloom, the rose-bud of its hue. 

* # # * « 

Her voice, enchanting to the dullest ears, 
She pillag'd from the musick of the spheres. 
To make her neck still lovelier to the sight, 
She robb'd the ermine of its spotless white. 
From Virgil's Juno (Jove's fictitious mate). 
She stole the queen-like and majestic gait. 
Of all her charms she robb'd the Cyprian queen. 
And still insatiate, stripp'd the Graces of their mien. 

But now to perfect an harmonious whole. 
With those internal charms that can't be stole. 
Kind Heaven, without her thieving, took delight 
To grant supernal grace, and inward light ; 
To charms angelic, it vouchsaf'd t' impart 
Angelic virtues and an angel heart. 
Thus fair in form, embellish'd thus in mind, 
All beauteous outward, inward all refin'd ; 
What could induce Eliza still to steal, 
And make poor plunder'd me her theft to feel ? 
For last she stole (if with ill-purpos'd art 
I'll ne'er forgive the theft), she stole — my heart ; 
Yes, yes, I will, if she will but incline 
To give me half of hers for all the whole of mine. 

The Assembly of the colony of New-York, at 
this period chosen septennially, was dissolved in 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 119 

the latter part of the year 1758. The election 
which ensued was unfavourable to the De Lancey 
party. The college controversy had roused the 
great body of the people, strenuous efforts were 
made by the opposition to foster the excitement, and 
they were completely successful. Mr. Livingston 
was returned from his brother's manor, and three 
others of the name were sent by different districts. 
"From this time," says Smith,* "we shall dis- 
tinguish the opposition under the name of the 
Livingston party, though it did not always proceed 
firom motives approved by that family." 

The Assembly was at this period, however, but 
slightly tinctured with the spirit of faction. Great 
Britain was engaged in a formidable war, which 
pressed upon no part of her dominions so heavily 
as on the northern colonies of America ; and the 
hostile temper of their internal dissensions was ob- 
literated in the general conviction that their united 
efforts were demanded not merely to obtain victory, 
but to preserve their existence. The colonial admin- 
istration was too wary to create excitement by the 
introduction of disputed topics, and the majority, 
confident in their own strength, lent themselves 
with alacrity to the measures of the government, 
directed against the common enemy. 

The new Assembly was called together in Feb- 
ruary, 1759, and the answer of the House to the 
message of the heutenant governor, congratulating 

• Vol. u. p. 331. 



120 THE LIFE OF 

them on the reduction of Fort Du Quesne, and re- 
commending various measures to be adopted with 
reference to the war, seems to have been the pro- 
duction of Mr. Livingston. On the 9th of February, 
we find him placed, with his brother Phihp and 
others, on a committee appointed to concert a plan 
of defence for the frontiers, and during the whole 
period of his membership he appears to have been 
actively engaged in his legislatorial duties. It is 
unnecessary, however, to follow him through the 
successive adjournments of this Assembly, which 
was convened to do little more than pass bills for 
the facilitation of the conduct of the war. 

In July, 1760, the heutenant governor, James De 
Lancey, died suddenly, and the reins of office fell 
into the hands of Cadwallader Golden, as president 
of the Council. On the 22d of October, the new 
chief-magistrate delivered his first speech to the 
Assembly, congratulating them on the success 
of his majesty's arms, which had now secured the 
conquest of Canada, effected the preceding year. 
" William Livingston," says Smith,* " penned the 
address offered in these triumphant moments of 
joy, and made the congratulatory echo louder than 
the first sound." 

The only remaining act of this Assembly which 
it is necessary to notice, is the bill passed on 
the 8th of November, 1760, authorizing Living- 
ston and Smith to digest the laws passed subse- 

♦ Vol. ii. p. 349. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 121 

quent to November, 1751. The task was accom- 
plished, as has been already said, in 1762. At this 
time the House was adjourned, and shortly after 
by the death of George II. it was dissolved. The 
next elections were still more favourable than the 
preceding to the hberal party, but Mr. Livingston 
now retired to the practice of his profession, leav- 
ing the manor to be represented by his nephew. 
This was his only connexion with a deliberative 
assembly until the year 1774. 

The dispersion of Mr. Livingston's correspond- 
ence, to an extent which may be perhaps under- 
stood when it is said that of all the letters written 
to him before the revolution, scarcely fifty remain, 
renders it necessary to rely for this portion of my 
narrative, to a considerable degree, upon those 
printed materials, which give the particulars of his 
life so far as connected with public transactions; 
and as at this time there occurred no matter of any 
general interest, and he held no office, I am com- 
pelled to leave an hiatus of nearly four years. 

Towards the close of the year 1764, a contro- 
versy of great interest to the colony grew up, which, 
as Mr. Livingston took an active share in it, I may 
be allowed to trace from the beginning. 

An action brought by Thomas Forsey against 
Waddell Cunningham for assault and battery, was 
tried at the October term of the Supreme Court, 
ancj a verdict found for the plaintiff with £1500 
damages. A motion for a new trial on the ground 
of excessive damages was denied. 



122 THE LIFE OF 

In this stage of tKe cause, there being, it ap- 
pears, no pretence of error on the part of the court, 
Robert R. Waddell, acting under a power of attor- 
ney from the defendant, the counsel previously em- 
ployed refusing to take any farther steps unknown 
to the law, moved to enter an appeal to the gov- 
ernor and Council, who exercised a well established 
and familiar jurisdiction as a Court of Errors. The 
judge disallowed the entry, saying he should not 
object to a writ of error, but that he knew of no 
appeal from the verdict of a jury. 

The unprecedented application of Waddell, 
which, had it been successful, must have gone far 
to take the decision of facts from under the con- 
trol of a jury, found more favour in the eyes of 
Lieutenant-governor Colden, who, basing himself 
upon the literal meaning of the word " appeal," 
as contained in one of the royal instructions, 
granted an order to arrest all further proceedings 
in the cause. The chief justice, Horsmanden, dis- 
regarded the command, and perfected th^ judg- 
ment ; but the clerk, daunted or embarrassed by 
this novel writ, refused to seal the execution. The 
lieutenant-governor now issued another instrument, 
commanding a return of the record and proceed- 
ings before himself in Council, " for the better ena- 
bling the said governor and Council to determine 
the matter of the said verdict." 

This writ came before all the judges in turn, and 
each with a most honourable firmness, refused to 
allow any return to it whatever, and each delivered 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 123 

his written opinion against the proceeding. These 
documents, which were shortly after printed, lay 
great stress on the unconstitutionality of this en- 
deavour to set aside a verdict, and on the impossi- 
bihty of making any sufficient return of evidence. 
It is not the first time that the chosen guardians of 
the law have preserved their trust inviolate, and 
that even the grasp of power has failed to soil the 
purity of the judicial ermine.* 

For the satisfaction of the Council, as it seems, 
the opinions of the most eminent advocates of the 
New-York bar were now taken. Mr. Livingston 
delivered his against the course pursued by the 
governor, in which Smith junior, Scott, Duane, 
and John Tabor Kempe, attorney general (though 
the last somewhat less explicitly) concurred. 

Golden, still remaining of his original opinion, 
urged the measure upon the Council on the grounds 
that the appeal was warranted by the royal instruc- 
tions ; that no writ of error could he in the Ameri- 
can colonies, because they were not parcel of the 
realm of England, and that jury trials were often 
an imperfect mode of arriving at truth.! The 

* The names of the magistrates composing this bench should 
be remembered. It consisted of Daniel Horsmanden, chief jus- 
tice, and William Smith senior, David Jones, and Robert R. Liv- 
ingston, puisne judges. 

t These form the chief topics of Colden's argument, commu- 
nicated to the Council with a request of secrecy. I have the origi- 
nal MS. from the papers of John Watts, then a membei' of that 
body. 



124 THE LIFE OF 

Council, however, upon a second petition addressed 
immediately to them, in January, 1765, unani- 
mously refused to take any steps whatever. In 
this position, the hands of both plaintiff and de- 
fendant tied up, the matter rested for some time.* 
The mind of Mr. Livingston had, however, been 
roused, and on the 28th of February, 1765, he 
commenced a series of papers entitled " The Sen- 
tinel," pubhshed in Holt's New-York Weekly Post- 
Boy. He appears to have received some assist- 
ance in their composition, and not improbably 
from his former coadjutors. The first numbers 

* At the instance of the lieutenant-governor, as may be safely 
assumed, an order of the king in privy-council, dated the 26th 
July, 1765, was obtained, which so far countenanced the appeal, 
that the Council of New- York, in October following, gave their 
assent to it. A writ framed like the preceding was immediately 
issued, but the court, with a boldness and consistency which 
deserve the highest credit, refused to allow any return to it, 
declaring, as they had already done, that if a writ of error M^ere 
taken, they should put no obstacles in its way. On the 14th De- 
cember, 1765, the Assembly took up the matter, and entered a 
report in full upon their journals, detailing the principal facts in 
the cause, severely censuring the course adopted by the lieutenant- 
governor, and passing great encomiums upon that of the judges. 
I find no further traces of the matter, and it was probably aban- 
doned. A report of this case appeared in a separate form while 
it was pending. Another pamphlet was published in 1767, en- 
titled " The conduct of Cadwallader Golden, Esq., lieutenant- 
governor of New- York, relating to the judges' commissions, ap- 
peals to the king, and stamp-duty," in defence of his conduct. 
The Assembly made every effort to discover the author without 
success. See the proceedings of the House of 23d December, 
1767, et seq. The pamphlet I have never met with. .'i^- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 125 

are devoted exclusively to the legal questions aris- 
ing out of Forsey's case ; but soon branching off, 
he touches upon most of the prominent topics of 
the day. 

There is no number of these essays exclusively 
devoted to the subject of the stamp-act, the oppo- 
sition to which was now rapidly drawing to a 
head ;* but we find more than enough to show how 
fully the writer coincided with the wisest patriots 
of the country, in his opposition to the principles 
out of which that obnoxious measure grew. 

The most striking of the Sentinels is entitled, 
*' A JVew Sermon to an Old Text^ The text is, 
" Touch not mine anointed — " a sentence which 
it is the drift of this homily to show had been alto- 
gether misunderstood by previous commentators, 
— and that not monarchs, but the people, are in 
fact the favoured of Heaven. He then proceeds to 
show in what " touching" the people consists, and 
he proves conclusively that " the Lord's anointed" 
must be very tenderly handled. It is a curious 
paper, and forms one of the many proofs going to 
show at how early a period the American mind 
took that direction, which now for half a century 
it has steadily maintained. 

The twenty-eighth and last number of the Sen- 
tinel was published on the 29th of August, and 
its cessation, at that critical period, attracted 



• The day fixed for the Stamp Act to go into operation was 
the first of November, 1765. 



1 26 THE LIFE OF 

general attention. Whether it is simply to be 
accounted for by the engrossing calls of his pro- 
fession, or that the violent character which the 
opposition to the ministerial schemes about this 
time assumed, threw the conduct of the party 
into the hands of more vehement and daring 
spirits, it is now impossible to ascertain. — Perhaps 
the following paragraph, written in 1768,* well 
expresses the feehngs with which Mr. Livingston 
regarded the then state of public opinion. " I 
could not look on the late tumults and commo- 
tions occasioned by the unhappy Stamp Act, 
without the most tender concern, knowing the 
consequences ever to be dreaded, of a rupture 
between the mother country and these plantations, 
which is an event never to be desired by those 
who are true friends to either." We shall see at 
a later period, that it required the ten years of 
ministerial mismanagement and oppression, com- 
pletely to uproot his colonial prejudices and early 
affections in favour of the English government, 
and to enable him to lay hold of the plough, 
without casting a glance behind. 

In the fragment of auto-biography, written by 
Arthur Lee,t there occurs a striking proof how 
widely the reputation of Mr. Livingston as a firm 
and consistent whig, was spreading throughout 
the country. Mr. Lee, in 1766, when about to 

• American Whig, No. 42. It does not purport, on its face, 
however, to be written by Mr. Livingston. 

t Contained in his life by R. H. Lee, Esq., vol. i. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 127 

return to England, with that energetic ardour 
which has connected his name so indissolubly with 
our early history, made a tour through the colonies 
north of Virginia for the purpose of establishing 
correspondences, as he says, with leading patriots 
in each colony. " Together with Dulany and 
Dickinson," he continues, " 1 had in contemplation 
the leader of the Livingston party in New-York, 
who is at present governor of New-Jersey." The 
meeting did not take place, Mr. Livingston being 
in the neighbouring province, where he had been 
called by the death of a favourite son (Philip 
French) about nine years old, with whose educa- 
tion he had taken great personal pains, who was 
drowned in the Hackensack. 

In the year 1767, the sectarian jealousy which 
prevailed, as we have already seen, in New-York, 
and the seeds of which, from various sources we 
learn, were widely sown throughout the colonies,* 
was roused to a great and general excitement. 
As this is a subject which, if not treated in an 
impartial and liberal frame of mind, might even 
at this late day awake those feelings which are 
prejudicial to the best interests of religion, I cannot 
better introduce the subject than by quoting the 
dignified language of a venerable divine belonging 
to the church, of the opposition to which at an 
early period of our history 1 am now to speak. 

* Tudor's Otis, chap. x. Wirt's Henry. Ramsay's Am. 
Revolution, vol. i. 



12& THE LIFE OF 

" In regard to the motives of the parties in the 
dispute," says Bishop White, when speaking of 
the angry dissensions on the subject of the es- 
tabhshment of an episcopate in the colonies, 
" there are circumstances which charity may apply 
to the most favourable conclusions. As the Epis- 
copal clergy disclaimed the designs and the ex- 
pectations of which they were accused, and as the 
same was done by their advocates on the other 
side of the water, particularly by the principal of 
them, the great and good Archbishop Seeker, they 
ought to be supposed to have had in view an 
episcopacy purely religious. On the other hand, 
as their opponents laid aside their resistance of 
the religious part of it, as soon as American in- 
dependence had done away all political danger, if 
it before existed, it ought to be beheved that in 
their former professed apprehensions they were 
sincere."* 

The British Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts, a body possessed of large 
funds, and dignified by great names on the hst of 
its members and patrons, was incorporated in 
1701. Among its various efforts to disseminate 
rehgion through the colonies, many of which were 
marked by a benevolent and generous spirit, this 
society had always cherished, as a favourite 
scheme, the estabhshment of an American epis- 
copate. As early as 1714, an order is said to have 

• Mem. of the Prot. Epis. Ch. in the U. S., Phil. 1820. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 129 

been obtained from Queen Anne, who favoured 
the project, for the draught of a bill to be laid 
before parHament to this end. The death of that 
princess put a stop to the measure, and for a 
long time afterwards it appears not to have been 
thought of* 

But the jealousy of the dissenting colonists was 
fully awakened. Their ancestors had suffered too 
much from the incorporation of the civil and 
religious power, that they should see with in- 
difference the aggrandizement of a sect already 
befriended to an unequal degree by their brethren 
at home. With a wise forecast, they resolved 
to withstand what might even have the semblance 
of an encroachment upon their religious rights, 
and to prevent the possibility, however remote, 
and however little desired by the Episcopalians 
themselves, of any combination of the church and 
the state. The injustice done to the Presbyterians 
in New-York under Lord Cornbury, the violent 
pamphlet warfare carried on in Massachusetts, in 
1763 and '64, and similar occurrences in most of 
the colonies, together with the recent civil causes 
of excitement, had quickened to the utmost their 
natural sensibihty, and they were prepared to take 
the alarm on the first motion of the Episcopahans. 
To all these causes was added a new one by 
the rejection of the petition of the Presbyterian 

* Chandler^s Appeal, sect. v. See also Mr. Greenwood's 
History of King's Chapel. 



130 THE LIFE OF 

Church of New-York Tor a charter of incorpora- 
tion in August, 1767. 

While matters were in this state, the project for 
estabhshing an episcopate in America was most 
unwisely revived. On the 20th February, 1767, 
Dr. Ewer, Lord Bishop of Llandaflf,* preached 
before the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, a sermon, of which the object was to 
recommend this scheme. The subject, sufficiently 
obnoxious in itself, was rendered more so by the 
manner in which it was treated. A single extract 
will .give an idea of the character of this discourse. 
Of the early colonists, the prelate says (page 5), 
" Upon the adventurers themselves what reproach 
could be cast heavier than they deserved ? who, 
with their native soil, abandoned their native 
manners and religion, and ere long were found in 
many parts living without remembrance or know- 
ledge of God, without any divine worship, in 
dissolute wickedness, and the most brutal profli- 
gacy of manners. Instead of civilizing and con- 
verting barbarous infidels, as they undertook to do, 
they became themselves infidels and barbarians." 
Starting with these premises, the dignitary not 
unnaturally drew the conclusion, that the only 
remedy for these manifold evils was to be found 
in a church estabhshment. 

Finding themselves thus supported at home, the 

* This prelate, subsequently translated to the see of Bangor, 
died about the year 1774. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 131 

colonial clergy were not backward in urging their 
claims. A convention of the ministry of New- 
York and New-Jersey was held shortly after this, 
and petitions were laid by them before his majesty, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the University 
of Cambridge, urging the propriety of sending 
bishops to America. At the request of the same 
body. Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, Rector 
of the church of Elizabethtown, in New-Jersey, 
pubhshed in the summer of the same year " An 
Appeal to the Pubhc ii» behalf of the Church of 
England in America." This pamphlet, a heavy 
but mild and decorous production, is a laboured 
argument, not only in favour of the particular 
scheme in question, but of the Episcopalian system 
generally. The reasons chiefly relied upon in 
favour of the former, are drawn from the want of 
a regular government in the colonial church, and 
the inconvenience attending confirmation and or- 
dination; to obtain the latter, the young clergy 
being obliged to go to the mother country. The 
work also contains several sections going to show 
that the episcopate prayed for was purely religious, 
and could have no improper connexion with the 
civil power. 

The dissenters were now fairly aroused, and 
Dr. Charles Chauncey, of Boston, first took the 
field (December, 1767), in " A Letter to a Friend, 
containing remarks upon certain passages in the 
Bishop of Llandaff's Sermon, &c." The inex- 
pediency of any establishment of religion by law, 



132 THE LIFE OF 

the grounds for apprehension lest the vast and 
oppressive system of tithes, spiritual courts, and 
the canon law^, should accompany or follov\^ the 
colonial prelates, furnished ready and popular 
topics of reply as well to Ewer as to Chandler. 
At the same time it was freely admitted by the 
dissenters, that no objection could be had to the 
introduction of bishops unattended by any tem- 
poral power or dignity. But they destroyed the 
effect of their admission, by maintaining that it 
could not be safe to trust tthe encroaching dispo- 
sition of a church which at home had distinguished 
itself for intolerance and oppression. 

Mr. Livingston was the next to enter the lists ; 
in the early part of 1768, he pubhshed " A 
Letter to the Right Reverend father in God, John 
Lord Bishop of Llandaff, occasioned by some pas- 
sages in his lordship's sermon on the 20th of Feb- 
ruary, 1767, in which the American colonies are 
loaded with great and undeserved reproach." In 
this pamphlet the author does not touch upon the 
merits of the proposed estabhshment, but confines 
himself to the refutation of the charges against 
the morals and cultivation of the colonies, which 
indeed formed the corner-stone of the argument. 
The task was not a difficult one, and it is executed 
with spirit and ability. The tone adopted towards 
the bishop is perhaps as respectful as the occasion 
warranted ; it is one of sarcastic indignation and 
contempt — indignation aroused by an unjust and 
illiberal attack, and contempt awakened by the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 133 

ignorance of the assailant. The following extract 
may be found interesting from its connexion with 
political topics, and from its similarity to the cele- 
brated speech of Barre. 

" Your lordship proceeds, ' A scandalous ne- 
glect (to wit, this of not making provision for 
ministers), which hath brought great and de- 
served reproach both on the adventurers and on 
the government whence they went, and under 
whose protection and power they still remained in 
their new habitations.' To convince your lordship 
by an induction of particulars, that these colonies 
have of late indeed felt the power of the country 
whence they emigrated, would oblige me to pro- 
tract this letter to an inexcusable length. A great 
part of that august assembly, the British parlia- 
ment, and his majesty's ministers in particular, have 
exhibited recent proofs by removing some of our 
complaints against an undue exertion of power, 
that it had made us feel but too great a proportion 
of it. I am sorry, my lord, that so few of the right 
reverend bench concurred with them in sentiment. 
But with respect to the protection which the 
mother country hath afforded us, your lordship has 
no reason to triumph. Many of the colonies were 
not only settled without her protection, but by rea- 
son of her persecution and intolerance. The emi- 
grants fled from her into the wilds of America, to 
find an asylum from those usurpations over the 
consciences of men which she so wantonly exer- 



134 THE LIFE OF 

cised, after having forsaken houses and lands, and 
the most tender connexions, with every thing dear 
and estimable among human-kind, for the undis- 
turbed fruition of the rights of private judgment. 
* * * ^ character this, my lord, that will, in the 
opinion of all impartial men, make a brighter 
figure in history than can possibly be acquired by 
haranguing on the excellence of Christianity from 
the downy couch of security and ease, or recom- 
mending the propagation of it among the pagans, 
the orator the meanwhile remaining at the salu- 
tary distance of three thousand miles from the 
scene of action." * * # 

The letter closes thus. 

" With this, my lord, I shall humbly take my leave, 
hoping that for the sake of truth and the cause of 
religion, — especially remembering how greatly your 
lordship has been deceived in the present case, — 
you will be so gracious for the future, in whatever 
concerns the American colonies, as to require the 
highest evidence of which the nature of the thing 
is capable. And heartily wishing, my lord, (it 
being easy to see for what purpose this kind of 
misinformations are calculated), that your lordship 
may be so successful, and so thoroughly satisfied 
in the discharge of your episcopal function within 
the limits of your present diocess, as never to 
think it your duty to exchange the see of LlandafF 
for an American bishopric. 

" I am, my lord, &c. &c." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 135 

This pamphlet was immediately repubhshed in 
London, and excited much attention ; nor was the 
author's reputation less increased in his native 
country. On the 21st of June, 1768, he received 
from the consociated churches of the colony of 
Connecticut, assembled at Coventry, a vote of 
thanks " for vindicating the New-England churches 
and plantations against the injurious reflections in 
the Bishop of Llandaff's sermon." This compli- 
ment was parodied by one of the opposite party in 
some thirty or forty lines, entitled " A Reviving Cor- 
dial for a fainting Hero." They close thus — 

" March on, brave Will, and rear our Babel 
On language so unanswerable. 
Give church and state a hearty thump. 
And knock down truth with falsehoods plump ; 
So flat shall fall their churches' fair stones, 
Felled by another Praise God Barebones, 
Signed with consent of all the tribe. 
By No — h W — s, our fasting scribe."* 

Mr. Livingston's " Letter" drew forth an answer 
entitled " A Vindication of the Bishop of Llandaff's 
Sermon, &;c." the part-authorship of which was 
ascribed to the Reverend Charles Inglis. It is not 
my intention, however, to give any thing more than 
a general outline of this discussion. All the pam- 
phlets must be read and examined to obtain a cor- 
rect idea of the colonial history of the day. The 

* Mr. Livingston's friend Noah Welles was the scribe or 
secretary of the convention. 



136 



THE LIFE OF 



following letters which' passed between Dr. Samuel 
Cooper, of Boston,* and the subject of this me- 
moir may serve perhaps to give a more hvely if 
not more correct impression of the private feelings 
of those opposed to the Episcopalian schemes. It 
was about this time that, when one of his daughters 
came to Mr. Livingston for money to buy a cloak 
then called a cardinal — " What," he exclaimed, 
with a smile, " a Presbyterian want a cardinal!" 

" TO THE REV. MR. SAMUEL COOPER. 

"New-York, 26th March, 1768. 
" Dear Sir, 
" I am glad to hear that Dr. Chauncey has un- 
dertaken an answer to Dr. Chandler's Appeal. As 
the latter began already to construe our silence on 
the subject into an acquiescence in his project, it 
is high time the appeal was answered. But though 
your venerable brother may strip our Episcopalian 
champion of his triumphal trappings, I think it can- 
not have the same salutary effect towards defeating 
the scheme at home as a course of weekly papers 
inserted in the public prints. These are almost 
universally read, and from the greater latitude one 
may there give himself, will prove more effectual 
in alarming the colonies. For I take it that 
clamour is at present our best policy, and that if 

* For some interesting notices of this eminent clergyman, see 
the Life of James Otis. The execution of that agreeable work 
adds all the lovers of American history to the long hst of those 
who lament the death of Mr. Tudor. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 137 

the country can be animated against it, our superiors 
at home will not easily be induced to grant so ar- 
rogant a claim, at the expense of the public tran- 
quillity. With this view a few of your friends here 
have lately begun a paper under the name of the 
American Whig, which they purpose to carry on 
till it has * * * an universal alarm. A number 
of gentlemen will shortly open the ball in Phila- 
delphia. I should be glad the same measure was 
pursued in Boston, * * * Without some such 
opposition, I am apprehensive the ministry may be 
prevailed upon to gratify the lawn-sleeves by way 
of recompense for so often voting against their 
consciences for the court. 

" As this country is good enough for me, and I 
have no notion of removing to Scotland, whence 
my ancestors were banished by this set of men, 1 
cannot without terror reflect on a bishop's setting 
his foot on this continent. Pray, my dear sir, be- 
stir yourself at this critical juncture, and help us 
to ward off this ecclesiastical stamp-act, which, if 
submitted to, will at length grind us to powder. 

" I beg your acceptance of the enclosed (the let- 
ter to the Bishop of Llandaff ), which 1 wrote out 
of real affection for the New-England colonies, and 
a sincere regard for truth. Dr. Chauncey had, 'tis 
true, so fully refuted the bishop's calumnies that 
any thing further might well have been dispensed 
with. But I thought he had treated that haughty 
prelate rather too tenderly, and that he deserved a 
little severer correction. * * * 



138 THE LIFE OF 

" I must, dear sir, rei5eat my earnest solicitations 
that you exert yourself in this interesting cause. 
We are debtors to our country — debtors to pos- 
terity — but, above all, debtors to Him who will not 
suffer a competitor in the supremacy of the 
church. * * * 

" I am, dear sir, 
" Your most affectionate friend, and humble serv't. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

" TO MR. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 

" Boston, 18th April, 1768. 
" Dear Sir, 
" 1 intended to have wrote you largely, but Miss 
Bradford, the lady who is so kind as to take the 
charge of my packet, setting out sooner than 1 ex- 
pected, I have only time to acknowledge the receipt- 
of your very friendly letter and the pamphlet that 
accompanied it, for which 1 return you my warm 
thanks. I was highly pleased when I found you 
engaged in this public service, by the advertise- 
ment of your letter in the New-York paper, and 
have been more so in reading it. The whole is 
clear and animated, and the New-England colo- 
nies are much indebted to you for so handsome a 
vindication. I * * for the Bishop of Llandaff, and 
wonder the missionaries do not blush for them- 
selves, when it so clearly appears that by their 
false * * and gross misrepresentations, they have 
so greatly abused their superiors, and led them to 
expose themselves to all the * *. You have treated 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 139 

his lordship 'as 1 have wished to see him treated 
upon this occasion — not indecently, but with spirit 
and a manly freedom. * * * 

" You are not alone in your opinion of Doctor 
Chauncey's performance. The Doctor, however, 
deserves well. His heart is engaged in the cause, 
and he has a clear head. * * * 

" I have been much entertained with what I 
have read of the American Whig, and am glad to 
find our friends at New-York exerting themselves 
in this important controversy with so much spirit, 
and to so good effect : your plan and the execu- 
tion of it, so far as I have seen, is well adapted to 
rouse and awaken ; the alarm spreads, and I hope 
will be soon universal. There are but few of the 
laity of the Church of England among us who 
really wish to see a bishop in America, and the 
ministry must be infatuated to introduce a new 
ecclesiastical power here, at such a distance from 
the check of the throne ; a power that the * * * 
authority has always found so hard to control and 
keep within bounds, not easily attempered to the 
original constitution of any of the colonies, and 
directly opposite to some of them ; a power that 
must unavoidably create confusion among them, 
and greatly heighten the difficulties attending the 
administration of them already. Chandler and 
the Episcopal clergy are utterly mistaken in think- 
ing the present a favourable season for opening 
their plan ; they could not have hit upon one more 
unpromising to their cause ; and * * * myself that 



140 THE LIFE OF 

the appeal, contrary to the design of its author 
and friends, will have some happy influence towards 
establishing civil and religious hberty in the colo- 
nies. How it is with you I cannot say, but among 
us, I think 1 can already discern some such eflfect. 
" The American Whig, could it be pubhshed in 
our papers, considering what Dr. Chauncey has 
wrote, would render such a work among ourselves 
altogether unnecessary. But this, though the 
printers are ready to do it, and many eagerly 
desirous of it, cannot be obtained. Mr. Parker, 
who I am told has the control of the post-office, 
has given his mandate against it, and threatened 
our printers that if they presume to publish any 
part of that paper, they shall have nothing con- 
veyed to them by the post, without paying the 
postage. This appears to me a very extraordinary 
measure ; and discovers, with a witness, what our 
poor America is likely more and more to feel, 
the insolence of office. This has disgusted people 
here, and will disappoint his design of enlarg- 
ing the number of his subscribers among us. 

" I am, sir, • 
" With much affection and esteem, 
" Your obedient humble servant, 

" Sam'l. Cooper." 

A letter written about this time to Mr. Living- 
ston shows the extended reputation he was 
gradually acquiring. The writer is, 1 beheve, the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 141 

father of the more notorious Brigadier Timothy 
Ruggles. 

"Guilford, Mass. January 21st, 1768. 
" Sir, 

" I shall make no other apology for my giving 
you the trouble of the enclosed, than an appeal to 
your goodness and animated friendship to your 
country, which I am no stranger unto, although I 
am to you as to personal acquaintance. 

" The enclosed are some of my employment in 
my winter leisure hours, which I would improve to 
some advantage. 

" The good of my country is a thing my mind is 
warmly solicitous for. And as I judge the plough 
is the prime and principal instrument and source 
of all the riches and prosperity of the country, my 
desires are warm to let husbandry, that ancient 
and honourable employment, flourish. 

" I have therefore presumed to use that part of 
freedom in friendship to send you my thoughts 
upon that important subject, as it is adapted to, 
and necessary for these climates. My desire is 
that if you can read them, you would be so good 
as to peruse them, and send me your friendly 
thoughts upon them with freedom and without 
reserve. 

"if there should be any thing worth while in 
your judgment, you may show them to some 
judicious friend or two ; but please to conceal my 
name. 



142 THE LIFE OF 

" When you have perused them, I should be 
much obhged to you if with your thoughts you 
would return them to me, by the channel of Mr. 
Rodgers, safely ; by whom they are conveyed to 
you. At present I shall give you no other trouble 
than to assure you that 1 am one of your sincere 
friends and admirers, in the greatest sincerity. 

"Thomas Ruggles." 

In the mean time the weekly essayists had 
commenced their labours. On the 14th March, 
1768, the first number of The American Whig 
made its appearance in the New-York Gazette, 
published by Parker. In the course of the same 
month the opponents of the American episcopate 
in Philadelphia opened their battery in the Penn- 
sylvania Journal, under the title of the Centinel. 
Their adversaries were not backward to return 
the fire, and Number I. of " The Whip for the 
American Whig, by Timothy Tickle," was begun 
in Gaine's New-York Gazette, of the 4th April. 
This again called into the field an advocate of the 
liberal party, who headed his effusions, published 
in Parker's Gazette, by the discourteous title of 
" A Kick for the Whipper." 

After the same manner was the angry contro- 
versy carried on in the Pennsylvania papers, under 
the various names of Jlnti-Centinel, Anatomist^ and 
Remonstrant ; Dickinson, as it is said, lending his 
aid to the. hberal side. Jeremiah Leaming, a 
missionary of the British Society at Norwalk, and 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 143 

Noah Welles, already often spoken of, maintained 
the warfare in Connecticut. The question be- 
came of great interest, and the political history 
of most of the colonies bear marks of the ex- 
citement on this subject.* The writer of the 
essays in the Boston Gazette, which had been 
pubhshed a short time previous, on the sub- 
ject of the canon and feudal law, now well 
known to be Mr. Adams, again took up his pen, 
to denounce what he deemed so palpable an effort 
to introduce the spiritual code; Massachusetts 
instructed her agent Deberdt to withstand the 
scheme at home, and Wilkes, in his North Briton, 
exposed and reprobated the measure. 

The excitement of the provinces on this subject 
would have left yet more vivid traces of its effects, 
had it not been comparatively swallowed up in the 
civil commotions that followed ; at the same time, 
it is impossible rightly to understand our ante-revo- 

• The following anecdote, for which I am indebted to an eye- 
witness, illustrates the state of feeling in New-Jersey. About 
the time at which we have arrived in the text, John Hart, after- 
wards a signer of the Declaration of Independence, ran for the 
Assembly, against Samuel Tucker, in 1776 President of the 
Provincial Congress. The former was supported by the Presby- 
terians, the latter by the Episcopalians, together with the 
Methodists and Baptists. During the two first days of the 
election Hart was ahead, but on the third, one Judge Brae, 
coming up with a strong reserve of Church-of-England-men, 
secured Tucker's return. A wag observed that the judge was 
not unlike the Witch of Endor, for it was clear he had raised 
Samuel. 



144 THE LIFE OP 

lutionary history, unless we keep fully in our minds 
the extent to which the political and religious discus- 
sions were interwoven. The jealousy of the dissent- 
ers had its rise in the foundation of the colonial set- 
tlements. The encroaching disposition manifested 
by a portion of the Episcopalians grew out of the 
establishment of the mother country. Neither 
feeling was diminished until after the revolution, 
both parties found that they had nothing to hope 
or fear, from the interference of a government, 
wise enough to take counsel and warning from the 
errors of those which had preceded it. 

It would be improper to go more at large into 
the discussion on the subject of the American 
episcopate, than has been already done ; and with 
a few closing remarks, the reader's attention will be 
called to other topics. Mr. Livingston is recog- 
nised as the editor of the Whig in the contempo- 
rary publications, and he is understood to have 
been assisted by Dr. Archibald Laidlie, the first 
clergyman of the Dutch church who officiated in 
the English language, and by his former fellow- 
labourers. Smith and Scott. Dr. John Rodgers of 
the Presbyterian church also thought, if he did 
not act, with him in the matter.* The most 
prominent of his opponents were, as we have said, 
Chandler, Samuel Seabury, at this time rector of 

* Vid. Dr. Miller's Life of Rodgers, p. 192. Dr. Miller sup- 
poses the late Dr. Mason to have been also engaged in this con- 
troversy ; but as 1 have not met with any allusion to his name in 
the writings of the day, his name is omitted in the text. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 145 

the parish of Westchester, and after the revolution 
bishop of the diocess of Connecticut, together 
with the Reverend Charles Inghs. It may be worth 
mentioning, that some of these essays were written 
in Dutch, for the purpose of producing a more im- 
mediate effect upon that considerable portion 
of the New-York population, which then still 
adhered to the original language. 

Nearly all these papers are strictly confined 
to the immediate subject of controversy. Their 
tone is frequently violent, or it might now be 
considered coarse, but they are interspersed with 
passages full of eloquence, and marked by a wide 
range of thought, interesting also as connected 
with those great topics with which the pages of 
our short but eventful history are so amply laden. 

The following extract from the fifth No. of the 
Whig, which may, I think, be attributed to Mr. Liv- 
ingston, indicates a spirit nearly akin to prophecy. 

" The day dawns in which the foundation of this 
mighty empire is to be laid, by the establishment 
of a regular American constitution. All that has 
hitherto been done, seems to be little besides the 
collection of materials for the construction of this 
glorious fabric. 'Tis time to put them together. 
The transfer of the European part of the great 
family is so swift, and our growth so vast, that be- 
fore seven years roll over our heads, the first stone 
must be laid. Peace or war, famine or plenty, 
poverty or affluence, in a word, no circumstance, 

T 



146 THE LIFE OF 

whether prosperous or adverse, can happen to our 
parent, nay, no conduct of hers, whether wise or 
imprudent; no possible temper on her part, will 
put a stop to this building. * * * What an era is 
this to America ! and how loud the call to vigi- 
lance and activity ! As we conduct, so will it fare 
with us and our children." 

The forty-sixth and last number of the American 
Whig appeared on the 23d January, 1769. The 
violence of the controversy gradually abated ; the 
fears of the dissenters were calmed by the evident 
reluctance of the English government to gratify 
the wishes of the Episcopalians, and all differences 
of sect had begun to disappear in the opposition 
now forming against the civil oppression of the 
mother country.* 

It appears by a hand-bill, preserved in the City 
Library, of the 3d January, 1769, that about this 
time, on the eve of the election of members of 
Assembly,, held in February of this year, Mr. Liv- 
ingston, with other leaders of his party, addressed 
a letter to James De Lancey and Jacob Walton, 
two of their most prominent opponents, in which, 
after deploring the past religious dissensions, and 
deprecating a continuation of them, they propose a 
union of the two parties for the time, and the nomi- 

* The principal essays on both sides of this question were re- 
published shortly after they appeared, in two volumes, forming a 
very valuable collection, which throws much li^ht upon the polit- 
ical, no less than the religious history of the period. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 147 

nation of a joint ticket. The wary Episcopalians 
rejected the offer. The election proved highly 
unfavourable to the Livingston party, and the De 
Lancey or high prerogative faction regained that 
ascendancy in the Assembly which they had not en- 
joyed for ten years. John Cruger, chosen speaker, 
James De Lancey, Jacob Walton, and James 
Jauncey, were the successful candidates. Their 
opponents, Philip and Peter Van Brugh Livingston, 
John Morine Scott and Theodorus Van Wyck, 
were defeated by a decisive majority. Fifteen 
hundred votes were polled, of which the high 
church party had 900. It was this Assembly 
which so much retarded the first steps of the 
revolution in New- York.* 

The following extract of a letter from Dr. Rod- 
gers to Mr. Livingston, written shortly before the 
death of the latter, is sufficient to show that his 
interest in the prosperity of his church was not 
confined to the labours of his pen. The loan of 
which the writer speaks was made in 1768. 

"New-York, 3d Feb., 1789. 
" Dear Sir, 
" This acknowledges the receipt of your kind 
favour of the 22d of Dec. For my own part, 1 
am deeply sensible of the generous aid you gave 
in building our new church. Your subscription 
(£100) towards it was truly liberal, and among the 

* Vid. The Watchman in N. Y. Journal for 12th April, 1770. 



148 THE LIFE OF 

first for the purpose, besides your assistance in 
other ways in carrying on the building, no less 
important for accomplishing the end ; and the loan 
you now call for the payment of was not less 
generous than your first subscription. The tenor 
of those loans was for seven years free of interest, 
and then to bear interest till paid. Your kindness, 
in offering to give up half the interest due, ought 
to have its weight in hastening the payment of 
the debt, and no doubt will. 

*' I am, &c. 

"John Rodgers." 

The following playful letter, written to his son, 
at this time at school in New-Jersey, and probably 
belonging to the year 1768, contains an allusion 
to the perpetually-recurring subject of the college 
controversy. 

"New-York, July 15. 
" Dear Billy, 
" I just received your letter of the 14th instant, 
and perceive that by your studying Lucian, who 
treats much about ghosts, you have your head so 
filled with the idea of ghosts as even to dream 
about them. Among other ghosts that may, dur- 
ing the hours of sleep, present themselves to your 
imagination, I would have you be very complaisant 
(in case they should vouchsafe you a visit), to 
those of the first and second Brutus, of Mr. Wal- 
lace, of Algernon Sidney and John Hamden; but 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 149 

if the spectre of any of the Stewart family, or of 
any tyrant whatsoever should obtrude itself on 
your fancy, offer it not so much as a pipe of 
tobacco ; but show its royal or imperial spectrality 
the door, with a frank declaration that your prin- 
ciples will not suffer you to keep company even 
with the shadow of Arbitrary Power. * * * 

" You are very severe on our famous New-York 
College. * * * The partial, bigoted, and iniqui- 
tous plan upon which it was constructed deserved 
the opposition of every friend of civil and religious 
liberty ; and the clamour I raised against it, in con- 
junction with two or three friends, when it was first 
founded on its present narrow principles, it has not 
yet, and probably never will totally silence. 
"I am 
" Your most affectionate father, 

" WiL. Livingston." 

It is proper to state that, after the revolution, 
Mr. Livingston made not the smallest opposition 
to the introduction of bishops into the Episcopal 
church. He perceived that their church-govern- 
ment had become, under the independent and free 
system of the United States, a matter concerning 
themselves alone, in which no other set of men 
had any right or interest to interfere. 

In the year 1770, Mr. Livingston pubhshed under 
the title of " A Soliloguy^^ a bitter and unsparing in- 
vective against Lieutenant-governor Golden, whose 
conduct on the subject of the appeals, the judges' 



150 THE LIFE OF 

commissions, and the l^tamp Act, had rendered him 
highly unpopular, and scarcely more so with the 
liberal party than with the mass of the people.* 
The precise subject which drew forth this attack 
I have been unable to discover ; it grew apparently 
out of some claim upon the treasury, produced by 
the chief magistrate, and regarded by his satirist 
as ill founded. All the obnoxious acts of Colden's 
life are passed in review, and a sentence more 
rigid than posterity is disposed to confirm, pro- 
nounced upon them. This pamphlet went through 
a second edition shortly afterwards, and is still 
valuable, as showing the acrimony of party spirit 
at this time. Some pieces published in April of 
this year, in the New-York Journal, under the title 
of " The Watchman^'''' and the signature of " Brutus,'''' 
giving the history of the politics of the colony, in 
the time of De Lancy, are also ascribed, I know not 
with what accuracy, to Mr. Livingston's pen.f 

* The original title run thus. " A Soliloquy. 

Nulli sincera voluptas, 

Solicit! aliquid lagtis intervenit — 

His friends eternal during interest, 

His foes implacable when worth their while. 

Loud croaks the' raven of the law and smiles. — Y oung." 

t Vid. N. Y. Journal for 5th April, 1770, — essay signed Amer- 
icanus. Among Mr. Livingston's MSS. there are some verses 
headed " The mighty he" and a prose piece of some length, 
entitled, '■'•An Answer to a Paper signed C. ^." I have never 
seen these in print, but they refer to pamphlets relating to an 
individual whose soubriquet is Molouck, the object of Mr. Liv- 
ingston's satire. What the nature, or date of the discussion was. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 151 

In the fall of the year 1770, the principal lawyers 
of the city of New-York formed a club, which 
they called The Moot, for the purpose of discuss- 
ing legal questions. x4t their first meeting, on the 
23d November, Mr. Livingston was elected Presi- 
dent, and William Smith, Vice President. This, 
perhaps, affords a tolerably correct indication of 
the standing of these gentlemen at the bar. The 
meetings of this club were held every month : from 
the character of the members their decisions were 
regarded with much respect ; and it has been said 
that they materially influenced the judgment of 
the Supreme Court. I find a question, connected 
with the taxation of costs, sent down to the Moot 
by the chief justice expressly for their opinion. 
Mr. Livingston retained his office, according to 
the rules of the club, until the following Novem- 
ber, when he was succeeded by Samuel Jones.* 



I cannot gather from them, and I have not succeeded in find- 
ing the printed works to which they refer, and in which, as it 
seems, a Mr. Campbell had some share. 

* As some of the members of this club were afterwards among 
the most prominent men of the country, a few additional partic- 
ulars may be found interesting. Their journal, for the use of a 
copy of which I am indebted to the kindness of P. A. Jay, Esq., 
begins thus. 

"The establishment and rules of the club called the Moot. 

" The subscribers being desirous of forming a club for social 
conversation, and the mutual improvement of each other, have 
determined to meet on the evening of the first Friday of every 
month, at Barden's, or such other place as a majority oi the 



152 THE LIFE OF 

But little now remains to be said before we take 
leave of this section of my narrative, in order to 
accompany the subject of it on another theatre, 
and through very different scenes. The more fa- 
miliar details of this portion of Mr. Livingston's 
life, as they have been described to me, present 
a somewhat remarkable picture. The calm and 
even tenor of his private hours is strikingly con- 
trasted with the turbulent character of his political 
and polemical exertions. 

Actively engaged during the week in discharg- 
ing the duties of a laborious profession, or in an 

members shall from time to time appoint, and for the better reg- 
ulating the said club do agree : 

» I. That the said club shall be called The Moot. * * • 
" V. No member shall presume upon any pretence to introduce 
any discourse about the party politics of the province, and to 
persist in such discourse after being desired by the president to 
drop it, on pain of expulsion." 
This constitution is signed by 

Benjamin Kissam, John Jay, 

David Mathews, William Smith, 

William Wickham, John Morine Scott, 

Thomas Smith, James Duane, 

Whitehead Hicks, John T. Kempe, 

Eudolphus Ritzema, Robert R. Livingston, jr. 

William Livingston, Egbert Benson, 

Richard Morris, Peter Van Schaack, 

Samuel Jones, Stephen De Lancey. 

On the 4th of March, 1774, John Watts, jr., and Gouverneur 
Morris were admitted to the society. The meetings do not appear 
to have been regularly held, and the members of the Moot came 
together for the last time on the 6th January, 1775. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 153 

angry warfare in defence of his civil and religious 
rights, three times on every Sabbath, surrounded 
by his numerous family, he went up to that church 
formerly contemned and oppressed, but for which 
his exertions had procured respect ; of which he 
was one of the brightest ornaments and chief sup- 
ports. These were not, it is true, the first fruits of 
his heart and his intellect, laid upon the shrines of 
country and rehgion. They were not the offspring 
of enthusiasm, or the offering of youth. They 
were the better gifts of a matured mind and an es- 
tablished character. His daily labours found their 
close and solace in the evening, passed in the soci- 
ety of his friends, and in the amusement or instruc- 
tion of his children. Fond of the social circle, 
and the delight of that in which he moved, his 
cheerful humour and lively wit gave an equal zest 
to " Mother Brock's" club-room,* and to more 
mixed festivities. If there be blemishes in this 
portrait such as those to which 1 have already 
alluded, is it unreasonable, while they are not con- 
cealed, to throw them into the background ? 

In his private life we can discern some of the 
same traits which mark Mr. Livingston's public 
character. He always showed a dislike to the soci- 
ety of the English officers, of whom there was gene- 
rally a considerable number in New-York. This 

* A club of gentlemen were accustomed to meet at a house at 
the corner of Wall and New streets, kept by a Mrs. Brock, 
more familiarly designated as in the text, whose husband, Walter 
Brock, had no share of its honours. 

u 



154 THE LIFE OF 

was the more surprising, at least in the eyes of the 
city belles, as these sons of Mars formed by far the 
most brilliant ornaments of their fetes, and quite 
threw the mohairs^ as the native gallants were in* 
vidiously termed, into the shade. He rarely ad- 
mitted the former to the hospitalities of his house, 
and preferred to select his society from his own 
townspeople.* 

It should be mentioned that so late as the year 
1760, Mr. Livingston was engaged in privateering 
adventures. This is one of those inconsistencies 
which the advance of civilization has done away. 
Few persons now pretending to religious principle 
would think themselves justified in lending any 
countenance to a practice which so much enhances 
the horrors of war, and which this country enjoys 
the honour of having attempted to put down. 

* The only instance during his life in which Mr. Livingston 
is said to have been guilty of the slightest excesses of the table, 
although at that time a tolerably frequent repetition of them was 
not inconsistent with a fair character for sobriety, was at a din- 
ner given at the Fort (the government-house), by Lord Dunmore. 
His lordship, who was something of a wine-bibber himself (and 
it is a pretty specimen of the manners of the day), laid a scheme 
to entrap the discreet and staid burghers. By dint of goblets 
double the ordinary size, repeated bumpers, and various other 
tricks familiar to noble butlers, his design was effected ; not 
a few of the whig champions, and Mr. Livingston among the 
number, saw that night, in heaven and earth, more things than 
their philosophy had ever till then dreamed of. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 155 



CHAPTER V. 

Mr. Livingston removes to Elizabethtown, New-Jersey, in 1773 
— Controversy relating to the Treasurer — He is sent to 
Congress in 1774 — His Share in the Proceedings of that Body. 

Mr, Livingston appears, from an early period, 
to have entertained the intention of retiring from 
his profession to a country life. As early as 1760 
he made purchase of a piece of land, containing 
about eighty acres, in Elizabethtown, in the county 
of Essex, in the then province of New-Jersey. 
This, by subsequent additions, he increased to a 
hundred and twenty acres, and occupied his leisure 
in setting out upon it various species of fruit trees, 
which like almost every article of colonial use, were 
imported from England.* During the two or 

* These trees were principally imported in 1767, '8, and *9. 
On looking over his orders I am surprised to see how few of the 
names are the same with those now in use. Of 65 pears, the 
Beurrees, the Ambree, St. Germain, Bergamot, and Vergaloo 
are alone to be recognised. Of plums, the proportion is some- 
what greater, but a decided majority even of these is now so 
obsolete, that I question whether even the Linnaeus of Flushing, 
or of Liberty-street, would be able to recognise them. It is 
pleasing, however, to notice, that perhaps the very best fruit 
which our adjacent country boasts at the present day has a 
venerable pedigree. In 1767 I find Mr. Livingston sending out 
two barrels of Newtown pippins to a friend in England. 



156 THE LIFE OF 

three last years of his' residence in INew-York, he 
seems to have gradually contracted his profes- 
sional business, and to the country in May, 1772, 
he finally removed. He remained in the village 
of Ehzabethtown during the erection of a new 
house upon his estat-e, until the fall of 1773; sub- 
sequent to which, for the remainder of his life, this 
country seat was at least his nominal home.* His 
family urged him to bestow upon his new place 
some distinguishing name, according to a fashion 
introduced from the mother country ; but averse 
to every thing of the kind, he refused to give it 
any other appellation than " Liberty Hall," and by 
this title it was often known to his more intimate 
friends. 

When Mr. Livingston left New-York for New- 
Jersey he had passed the prime of life, but he pos- 
sessed still an unbending spirit and an unbroken 
constitution. 

Dum nova canities, dum prima et recta senectus 
NuUo dextram subeunte bacillo, 

he retired from active life to spend his declining 
years in retirement, after having made sacrifices 

* This building is still standing ; it is situated about a mile to 
the north of the village of Elizabethtown, on the east of the Mor- 
ristown road. It is at present in the possession of Mrs. Niem- 
cewicz, a relative, though not a descendant of Gov. Livingston, 
and the place bears the appellation of Ursino, in compliment 
to a distinguished individual of a most distinguished and most 
unfortunate people. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 157 

to the public as great as virtue could demand; 
having established a high and dignified reputation, 
not less of character than of talent, and purchased, 
by the laborious and praiseworthy exertions of 
thirty years, the right to tranquil indulgence of that 
pure and simple kind most congenial to his tastes. 

It is said that one of Mr. Livingston's principal 
inducements to select Elizabethtown as the spot 
of his future residence was the circumstance that 
William Peartree Smith, and another of his friends 
and fellows of Yale, resided there. If this be 
so, it is a strong proof of the tenacity of his 
friendships. 

About the time that Mr. Livingston estabhshed 
himself in New-Jersey, a young and unfriended 
boy arrived in the country from the West Indies, 
bringing letters, as I have been told, to him from 
Hugh Knox.* The lad was put to the school of 
Francis Barber, of Elizabethtown. Both master 
and pupil not long afterwards entered the Ameri- 
can army. Of the former I believe little more is, 
or need be known. The scholar was Alexander 
Hamilton. 

The only positive information as to the causes 
of Mr. Livingston's departure from New-York, is 
to be derived from the following touching memo- 
randum, the original of which is written on the 
back of a schedule of his property, evidently 

* This person, a Presbyterian minister in North America, in 
1754, was afterwards settled in the island of St. Croix. Vid. 
Dr. Miller's Life of Rodgers. 



158 THE LIFE OF 

drawn up some time later. " The sum at the foot 
of this I was worth when I removed from New- 
York to New-Jersey, besides leaving upwards of 
£2000 behind me, due to me for costs in the 
province of New-York (besides the lands left me 
by my father) ; and as I was always fond of a 
country life, and thought that at that time I could 
with justice to my dear children go into the 
country, where the interest of that sum would 
more than maintain me, I accordingly went with 
the intention to lay up the surplus for their use; 
but so it has fortuned, by the breaking of some of 
my debtors, and by others paying me in conti- 
nental depreciated money, that 1 have not been 
able to answer that agreeable object ; and for 
those unforeseen occurrences, 1 hope my children 
will not blame me, having not spent my fortune 
by extravagant hving, but have * * by inevitable 
accidents." 

The property comprised in this statement is 
£8512, which, in the currency of New-York, 
amounts to a little more than twenty-one thousand 
dollars.* This circumstance alone would be suffi- 
cient to show the depreciation of the value of the 
circulating medium, and the increase of comforts 
and luxuries since that day. 

The following extract from a letterf written by 

* As the schedule contains only a list of bonds given to Mr. 
Livingston before he left New-York, their value must be calcu- 
lated according to the currency of that province. 

t Dated 7th March, 1774, but without address. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 159 

Mr. Livingston, would almost lead us to believe 
that he retired from public Ufe in despair of the at- 
tainment of that civil and religious freedom for 
which he had so long contended. The feeling, if 
it was entertained, cannot be justified ; but such 
distrust might at that time have found more ex- 
cuse in the situation of New-York than in some 
of the other colonies.* " From this sequestered 
corner of the globe," he says, " you will not I pre- 
sume, look for news. Our Assembly, according to 
their humble abilities, and their lack of equal op- 
portunities, with the most heroic emulation, make 
proportionable blunders with yours. They have 
however, at least one man of sense and public 
virtue among them, and of his sense and public 
virtue the world has had the same proof which of 
such characters it will never fail to have ; that he 
is perpetually traduced and misrepresented in the 
weekly papers. Ask Captain M'Dougall,t how 
far a man ought to sacrifice his fortune and char- 
acter in serving a country that will not be served, 

* At a patriotic dinner given in Pennsylvania, in April, 1770, to 
celebrate the repeal of the stamp-act, one of the toasts was, 
" The Colonial Assemblies, except that of New- York." (Vid. Gaz.) 

t Alexander M'Doiigall, afterwards major-general, almost as 
well known by his adopted title of a " son of liberty," imprisoned, 
in 1770, by the New- York Assembly for a vehement invective 
against their pusillanimous and time-serving course — one of 
the most daring of the New- York patriots, before the revolution, 
and an active and brave officer during the war. His papers are 
in this city, and must contain valuable materials for history — why 
is no use made of them ? 



160 THE LIFE OF 

and in opposing a majority which, notwithstanding 
such opposition, will be triumphant, or whether 
there be any future crown for pohtical, as there is 
for rehgious martyrdom." 

The dispersion of Mr. Livingston's correspond- 
ence renders it difficult to determine what were 
his pursuits during the two years and a half 
which elapsed between his removal to New-Jersey 
and the assembling of the first Congress. In one 
or two instances he appears to have resumed the 
practice of his profession (he had been admitted 
to practise in the courts of New-Jersey as early 
as 1755); more, however, it seems, to oblige a 
friend than as an avocation. 

It is probable that he was mostly occupied with 
putting in order his new buildings and grounds, 
while at the same time it is reasonable to suppose 
that he was intensely, it may be actively, interested 
in the stirring contests which agitated the neigh- 
bouring provinces ; and that from his retired posi- 
tion, as from a watch tower, he looked out with an 
attentive eye upon the storm which was slowly 
approaching. 

Before Mr. Livingston removed to New-Jersey, a 
controversy had arisen there, which will be here 
noticed at some length, as he was in a mea- 
sure connected with it, and as it was almost the 
only difficulty that existed between the people of 
that colony and the royal government prior to the 
revolution. 

In conformity with the original division of the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 161 

province into Eastern and Western New-Jersey, 
which was not finally obliterated until it became a 
state, a treasurer was, before the revolution, ap- 
pointed for each district ; and from the crude state 
of the commercial arrangements of that day, these 
officers were compelled to keep under their per- 
sonal care large sums, both of specie and of the 
paper bills of credit. The pubhc money chest of 
Stephen Skinner, treasurer of the eastern division, 
was broken open at his residence in Perth Amboy, 
on the 22d July, 1768, and rifled of between six 
and seven thousand pounds of paper and coin.* 

In October, 1770, the matter was brought before 
the Assembly, who, after a laborious investigation 
of evidence, resolved that the robbery was owing 
to the negligence of the eastern treasurer, and that 
he was bound to account for the sum missing. 
After a delay of two years, the House, in Septem- 
ber, 1772, sent a communication to the governor 
(William Franklin, the son of Dr. Franklin), who 
had the appointment of these officers, remon- 
strating with him for taking no measures to settle 
the affair. 

The governor took fire at the complaint, and 
replied in a captious tone, that nothing was as yet 
proved against Skinner, and that the nature of the 
desired remedy had not been specified. To this 

* The treasury of New-Jersey was particularly unfortunate. 
A similar accident happened in December, 1776, when Samuel 
Tucker was in this department. Vid. Min. N. J. Assem. 17th 
February, 1777. 

X 



162 THE LIFE OF 

the House promptly replied, demanding the dis- 
missal of Skinner, as convicted by the evidence 
laid before them of neglect of duty. Franklin 
answered, that he should not remove the treasurer 
until after the termination of the action at law, or of 
whatever other course the House might take to de- 
termine his liability. Upon this refusal, which was 
couched in language little calculated to render it 
more palatable, the Assembly resolved to take no 
further steps in the matter, leaving the responsi- 
bihty of the loss to the public upon the shoulders 
of the governor; and to another message from 
him, repeating the grounds of his decision, and 
alleging that the Council were unanimously of 
his opinion, the House returned for answer a re- 
quest to be prorogued, which accordingly in the 
latter part of the same month (September) was 
granted. 

The Assembly did not come together again till 
in November, 1773, and during the recess sus- 
picion of the robbery had fallen upon one Samuel 
Ford. In a long and studied message, the gov- 
ernor laid before the house all the testimony 
tending to inculpate Ford, and very strenuously 
insisted that his guilt was conclusively proved. 
Here, however, he was equally unsuccessful ia 
commanding the concurrence of the Assembly j 
and indeed it seems immaterial who the actual 
robber was, provided the loss was owing to the 
neghgence of the treasurer, unless we are to infer 
from the pertinacity of the House, — what is no- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 163 

where asserted or even insinuated, — that he was 
an accompHce in the transaction. 

The House, apparently resolved not to lose 
sight of him whom they considered the original 
culprit, denied that the testimony proved the guilt 
of Ford ; and reverting to the original question, 
once more demanded the dismissal of the trea- 
surer. It is to this stage of the controversy that 
the following pasquinade of Mr. Livingston refers, 
which I am the more tempted to insert as it has 
never appeared in print. 

" Governor. Gentlemen, the treasury has been 
robbed. 

" Assembly. Many people, sir, are of that opinion. 

" G. But Sam Ford has robbed it. 

" A. That is more than we know. 

" G. But I have laid before you the proofs and 
papers. 

" A. The papers, sir, we have received, but 
the proofs we can't find. 

" G. They contain striking circumstances. 
, " A. They don't strike us. 

****** 

" G. But Sam Ford is a villain. 

" A. So he is. 

" G. Then he has robbed the treasury. 

" A. Negatur consequentia. 

****** 

"G. One of the witnesses has sworn that he 
saw him, through a key-hole, cut the bills from the 
sheets on which they were printed. 



164 THE LIFE OF 

"»/^. The bills in the treasury were not in 
sheets. 

" G. That's an unlucky circumstance ; but he is 
a villain, and therefore the worst must be supposed 
against him. 

".^. The witnesses against him are villains, 
and therefore to be supposed to testify falsely. 
* * * * * * ' 

" G, Then you won't believe that he has robbed 
it? 

'* A. We don't care who has robbed it. 

" G. What then do you want } 

" A. The mohey. 

" G. From whom do you want it ? — from Sam 
Ford.? 

" A. From the man with whom we intrusted it. 

" G. Then demand it of him. 

" A. We don't know how to set about it, unless 
you turn him out." 

The governor still refiised to accede to the 
demands of the House, maintaining, as it would 
seem, for the purposes of delay, that the proper 
course of proceeding against the treasurer was by 
information, and not by suit at law, as was pro- 
posed. To this the House were altogether ad- 
verse, on the ground, as they allege in their answer 
of the 19th February, 1774, that this form of prose- 
cution would not allow of so impartial a scrutiny. 
It should be noticed that the office of attorney- 
general was at this time held by Cortland Skinner, 
brother of the treasurer. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 165 

A case had been in the mean time drawn up by 
the agents of the House, proposing three inquiries 
connected with this question. 

First. Whether the bond given by Skinner, for 
the correct performance of the duties of his office, 
was a vahd and legal instrument ? 

Second. Whether it could be put in suit in the 
present case ? and 

Third. If the inhabitants of New- Jersey were 
sufficiently free from the imputation of interest, to 
be jurors in an action against the treasurer ? 

On each of these three points Mr. Livingston, in 
June 1773, delivered his opinion in the affirmative. 
Fortified by this, and as it appears by other similar 
opinions, the House persevered in their resolution : 
and at length in February, 1774, when wearied out 
by the procrastination of Franklin, they had re- 
solved on a petition to the king, Skinner suddenly 
resigned his office. Upon this, as if to insult the 
Assembly, he was immediately called to the Coun- 
cil. During the whole of this discussion, the con- 
duct of Governor Franklin is that of a petulant, 
arrogant, and unwise man, utterly destitute of the 
prudence and self-possession which distinguished 
his father, and altogether unfit for the government 
of a people on the alert with regard to every ques- 
tion touching their rights. In a matter like this, it 
would seem that if there existed a genuine desire 
on both sides to arrive at the conclusion dictated 
by truth and justice, there could be no serious dif- 
ference as to the means. 



166 THE LIFE OF 

Upon the resignation of the treasurer, an act 
was immediately passed for the purpose of obvi- 
ating all difficulties, enabling John Smyth, the new 
treasurer, to bring an action against Skinner for the 
amount of which he had been robbed. The action 
was still pending in January, 1775, and below that 
period, I can find no notice of it. It is improbable 
that any legal termination was ever put to it. The 
revolution broke out ; the family of the Skinners 
in a body joined the English — inter arma silent 
leges — and such it seems was the termination of a 
controversy which, involving no principle, and ap- 
parently of triffing consequence, is still deserving 
of notice, as having had a material tendency to 
alienate the minds of the people of New-Jersey 
from the royal government, and to prepare them 
for acting in concert with the sister provinces. 

We have now reached the lowering spring of 
1774, when the inherited affection of the colonists 
for the mother country was fast giving place to 
distrust and resentment, and when the angry hum 
of menace began to echo from either shore. 
But the domestic circle performs its accustomed 
revolutions, and the daily offices and exchanges of 
society, the marrying and the giving in marriage, 
take place in spite of the convulsions of the political 
world. In April of this year, the fourth daughter of 
Mr. Livingston, Sarah Van Brugh, was married at 
Elizabethtown, to John Jay, at this time only known 
as a prominent member of the New-York bar, but 
destined not long afterwards to connect his name 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 167 

inseparably with the history of that half century, 
which is perhaps the most eventful that the world 
has known. Resembling each other in more than 
one particular, in their inflexible integrity, in their 
superiority to all the low devices of ambition, and in 
their marked religious character, the most cordial 
friendship subsisted between Mr. Livingston and 
his eminent son-in-law till the death of the former. 
If Mr. Livingston retired to New-Jersey with the 
intention of withdrawing himself from public life, the 
error — for erroneous that philosophy, or that prac- 
tice must ever be considered which detaches our 
sympathy from the pursuits, the. welfare, the mis- 
fortunes, and all the varied interests of our fellows 
— the error was happily corrected by the course 
of events. The waves of opinion rolled back 
from their first unsuccessful dashing against the 
bulwarks of power, only to return in their collected 
might ; and gradually embracing in their universal 
surge the intellect, the accomplishment, and the 
virtue of the colonies, their course was for a 
moment stayed, as if to exhibit their full strength, 
and to demonstrate the futility of resistance. It 
was at this moment, when those who had most 
deprecated the approaching crisis felt it could 
no longer be avoided, that Mr. Livingston, aban- 
doning the long promised repose which he had 
just begun to enjoy, throwing off* the sluggishness 
of advancing years, once more set his hand to 
the plough, and without casting a look behind, 
entered upon that which was to prove the most 



168 THE LIFE OF 

arduous and the most* honourable portion of his 
public services. 

Upon the arrival of the news of the passage of 
the Boston port act,* New-Jersey was not back- 
ward in expressing her concurrence in the views 
with which the leading colonies regarded this ob- 
noxious measure. A meeting of the inhabitants 
of the county of Essex was held at Newark, on 
the 11th of June; at which a committee, consisting 
of Crane, Riggs, Livingston, Feartree Smith, De 
Hart, Chetwood, Ogden, and.Boudinot, was chosen 
to serve as a committee of correspondence, and 
to meet the committees of the other counties for 
the purpose of choosing delegates to the Conti- 
nental Congress. The Assembly had already, on 
the 8th of February previous, appointed nine of its 
own members to obtain intelhgence, and to cor- 
respond with the sister colonies.t 

Proceedings similar to those in the county of 
Essex took place throughout the colony, and 
on the 23d of July, these committees, repre- 
senting every county in New-Jersey, and com- 
prising a majority of the members of the Assembly, J 
met at New-Brunswick, and elected James Kinsey, 
Livingston, John De Hart, Stephen Crane, the 
chairman of the meeting, and Richard Smith, 

* lOth May, 1774. # 

t Vid. Rivington's N. Y. Gazette for) 16th June, 1774, and 
Journals Assem. of N. J. 

% For this fact, important as showing the temper of the prov- 
ince, vid. Journal of House, 24th January, 1775. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 169 

deputies to represent the colony in Congress. At 
the opening of that body, at Philadelphia, on the 
5th of September, they were all present. It is a 
curious fact, as showing how thoroughly the chaft" 
was winnowed from the grain in the struggle which 
ensued, that of all these delegates, Livingston 
and Crane alone remained staunch to the cause 
they had espoused. De Hart retired from Con- 
gress before the Declaration of Independence? re-.^^^^ ••^'^ V 
fused the office of Judge of the SuprenAe Court 
under the state government, and was suspected of 
coolness to the American cause.* Kinsey left 
Congress in November 1775, refused to take the 
republican oath of allegiance,t and Smith was ex- 

* My information as to this suspicion is traditionary, but the 
facts stated in the text seem to support it. I have, however, no 
wish to add to the reputation of Mr. Livingston, by deducting 
from that of his contemporaries. 

t Journal of Congress, 2d December '1775. Kinsey was 
highly esteemed, notwithstanding the course he took at this 
time. . " He is a very good man," says Governor Livingston 
in a letter to Samuel Allison, of the 25th July, 1778, "though 
not the best hand upon deck in a storm ;" and to Kinsey 
himself, he writes under date of the 6th October, of the same 
year, — " As I find myself engaged in writing to my old friend, I 
cannot help embracing this opportunity to express my concern 
at your standing so much in your own light as to forego your 
practice rather than submit to a test, which all governments ever 
have, and ever will impose upon those who live within the 
bounds of their authority. * * * Your voluntary consent to take 
the test prescribed by law would soon restore you to the good 
opinion of your country (everybody allowing you, notwithstand- 
ing your imaccountable political oWiquities, to be an honest 

Y 




17® THE LIFE OF 

pelled the Assembly in* May, 1777. The two fol- 
lowing letters, written about this time, and con- 
nected with this subject, may be found acceptable. 
I am indebted for them to the courtesy of the His- 
torical Society of Massachusetts. 

TO THE COMMITTEE OP CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE 
TOWN OF BOSTON. 

^ " Elizabethtown (New-Jersey), 28th July, 1774. 

" GfcNTLEMEN, 

" The arbitrary and cruel oppression under which 
your metropolis now labours, from the suspension 
of commerce, must inevitably reduce multitudes to 
inexpressible difficulties and distress : suffering in a 
glorious and common cause, sympathy and resent- 
ment, with peculiar energy, fill the breasts of your 
anxious countrymen. As the King of kings and 
the Ruler of princes seems, in a remarkable man- 
ner, to be inspiring these colonies with a spirit of 
union, to confound the counsels of your unright- 
eous oppressors, and with a spirit of humanity and 
benevolence towards an innocent and oppressed 
people ; so we trust, he will also inspire your town 
with patience, resignation, and fortitude, until this 
great calamity shall be overpast. 

man), and yotir way to the magistracy would doubtless be easy 
and imencumbered." Some years subsequently, Knsey was made 
chief justice : he died, I believe, in 1801. Stephen Crane was 
illiterate, but a member of the Legislature for a long time both 
before and after the revolution, and at one time speaker of the 
colonial Assembly. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 171 

« We have the pleasure to acquaint you that on , 
the 21st instant, at the city of New-Brunswick, the 
province of New-Jersey, with singular unanimity, 
— seventy-two delegates from the several counties, 
and a majority of the House of Representatives, 
present and approving, — entered into similar reso- 
lutions with the other colonies ; elected five depu- 
ties for the proposed Congress, and the county 
committees then agreed to promote collections in 
their respective counties for the relief of such of 
the unhappy inhabitants of the town of Boston as 
may be now reduced to extremity and want. To 
accomplish this purpose with the more accepta- 
tion to yourselves, we, the committee of corres- 
pondence for the eastern division, request that by 
the return of the post, you would be pleased to 
advise us in what way we can best answer your 
present necessities — whether cash remitted, or 
what articles of provision, or other necessaries we 
can furnish from hence, would be most agreeable ; 
and which we hope we shall be able to forward to 
Boston very soon after your advice shall be re- 
ceived. We doubt not, gentlemen are devising 
every possible 'method for the employment of 
those who, by their deplorable situation, are cut off 
from all former means of subsistence. 
"We are, gentlemen, 

" Your very humble servants. 
" By order ^ 

"William P. Smith, 

" Chairman." 



172 



THE LIFE OF 



^ "TO MR. WILLIAM P. SMITH, NEW-JERSEY, 

^ "Boston, August 22d, 1774. 

« Sir, 

" The committee of correspondence for this 
town have handed to the committee of donations 
a letter from you of 28th ult., which breathes such 
a spirit of union and hearty concern for the rights 
of America, as must enkindle in every breast the 
highest opinion of the virtue and firmness of the 
inhabitants of New-Jersey. With hearts deeply 
impressed with gratitude, we note your kind inten- 
tions to contribute for the relief of the inhabitants 
of this town suffering by means of the Boston port 
bill, and desire to know ' in what way you can best 
answer our present necessities^ whether cash remitted or 
articles of provision.'' For answer, if cash should be 
equally agreeable to our friends, it would be very 
acceptable at this time ; but would leave that mat- 
ter entirely to your convenience. The Christian 
sympathy and generosity of our friends through 
the continent cannot fail to inspire the inhabitants 
of this town with patience, resignation, and firm- 
ness, while we trust in the Supreme Ruler of the 
universe, that He will graciously hear our cries, 
and in His time free us from our present bondage, 
and make us rejoice in His great salvation. Please 
to present our grateful acknowledgment to our 
friends of New-Jersey, and be assured we are, with 
the greatest esteem, 

" Sir, your friends and fellow countrymen. 

" Nath'l. Appleton, pr. order.'''' 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 173 

Of the delegates to the first Congress, so far as 
can now be learned, there is every reason to believe 
that far the greater number went with a sincere 
wish to adjust the differences between the prov- 
inces and the mother country, and had no desire to 
emancipate themselves from her control. The 
proceedings of that body, indeed, sufficiently prove 
this ; but it would seem that there were also, even 
then, some who entertained ulterior views, and who 
neither expected, nor perhaps desired the contest to 
be settled on any other condition than our absolute 
independence. Mr. Livingston coincided in senti- 
ment very decidedly with the majority, and the follow- 
ing extract of a letter from him to Henry Laurens, 
dated 5th February, 1778, is valuable, not merely 
as showing his own opinion, based upon his inflex- 
ible integrity, but as proving at how early a period 
the design of throwing off the allegiance of Great 
Britain made its way into the councils of the co- 
lonies. However such an intention may be re- 
garded through the medium of an unbiased and 
rigid morality, subsequent events have rendered it 
impossible to judge the actors harshly; and" by 
Americans at least, those who were earliest in con- 
ceiving and planning our independence will ever be 
looked upon as the wisest and boldest statesmen 
of the revolution. 

" I had not, sir," says Livingston, " been in Con- 
gress a fortnight before I discovered that parties 
were forming, and that some members had come 
to that assembly with views altogether different 



174 THE LIFE OF 

from what America pr6fessed to have, and what, 
bating a designing junto, she really had. Of these 
men, her independency upon Great Britain at all 
events was the most favourite project. By these 
the pulse of the rest was felt on every favourable 
occasion, and often upon no occasion at all ; and 
by these men measures were concerted to produce 
what we all professed to deprecate ; nay, at the 
very time that we universally invoked the Majesty 
of Heaven to witness the purity [of our hearts, I 
had reason to believe that the hearts of many of 
us gave our invocation the lie. * * * 1 cannot 
entertain the most favourable opinion of a man's 
veracity, who intended to do it (declare independ- 
ence) when he swore he did not, and when he 
represented a people who were actually pursuing 
measures to prevent the necessity of doing it. 

*^ •it' rii- ^i- 

'TV' TV* vr •vT 

" I well remember that a certain gentlemen used 
to edify us in Congress with letters from his 
brother, who, I predicted from those very letters, 
was then setting up for ambassador, before we 
were an independent state ; for such I know that 
he and his friends, and his brother, were deter- 
mined we should be, and therefore he had a fair 
opportunity of taking time by the forelock." 

In reference to this last clause, it should be 
stated that Mr. Livingston, without any intimacy, 
or indeed famihar acquaintance that can now be 
traced, with any one of the early diplomatic agents 
of the country, adopted opinions unfavourable to 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 175 

Arthur Lee in his controversy with Deane, and 
leaned to the side of the latter. The sentiments 
of a private individual, especially of one whose 
position allowed him no share in the angry debates 
on this subject, cannot be expected to have any 
controlling weight. A mind naturally deliberative, 
and averse to extremes, might easily misconstrue 
the eager, ambitious, and impetuous temperament 
of the Virginia statesman. Expressing no opinion 
on a subject I do not pretend to have examined, 
the sentiments of Mr. Livingston are given as he 
pronounced them. Others must decide on their 
value or correctness.* 

The principal papers drawn up by this body, the 
labors of which were confined to petition and 
remonstrance, are the Address of the Colonies to 
the People of Great Britain ; the Address to the 
Inhabitants of Quebec ; and the Petition to the 
King. Mr. Livingston was a member of the 
committee appointed to draught the address to the 
People of Great Britain, but the honorable task 
was executed by Mr. Jay. Owing, however, to 
some misunderstanding on the part of Harrison, 
and to the fact that the draught was reported by 
Mr. liivingston, it was for some time ascribed to his 
pen.t 

The only share of the labours of this Congress 

* It appears by the correspondence in Mr. Lee's life of his 
grandfather, R. H. Lee (vol. 2), that Mr. Laurens took the other 
side of the question. 

t Wirt's Henry, Ed. 1831, p, 127. Jefferson's Mem. i. p. 8. 



176 THE LIFE OF 

which can now be traced to him, except acting on 
the committee appointed to state the rights of the 
colonies, is the signing the Non-Consumption, 
Non-Importation, and Non-Exportation Associa- 
tion, on the 24th of October. The record of this 
body is singularly meagre. Some of the most 
prominent men of the country would seem, if we 
rely upon its testimony, to have had the least 
share in its transactions. In the early stages of 
the revolution, precedence was by common consent 
assigned to Massachusetts and Virginia, but the 
enviable honour of the authorship of the docu- 
ments of the first Congress is monopolized by Jay, 
Richard Henry Lee, and Dickinson. 

It is a striking fact, as showing how strictly 
Mr. Livingston adhered to the agreement above 
spoken of, entered into by the members, for the 
purpose of fostering colonial manufactures, that 
in a letter to his relative, the Rev. Dr. John Living- 
ston, of the 22d August, 1782, he says, "In full 
expectation of an honourable peace, and in proof 
of my Christian spirit of forgiving injuries, I have 
ventured to write this letter on paper stamped 
with his majesty's crown and initials, which is the 
first time that I have used so unorthodox a fabric 
since this article has been manufactured among 
us." There are also still preserved a quantity of 
buttons, which he procured to be made for his 
own use from clam-shells. This was an en- 
couragement and protection of domestic manu- 
factures which, called for by a state of incipient 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 177 

hostility, demanded by the unanimous voice of the 
continent, involving no constitutional question, cre- 
ating no sectional jealousy, no bickering and no 
heart-burning, might indeed be safely pronounced 
legitimate. 

Here too may be introduced an anecdote, char- 
acteristic of the time and the individual, but which, 
perhaps, belongs to a somewhat earlier period, the 
use of tea having been abjured by the patriots as 
early as 1773. The female and younger members 
of Mr. Livingston's family were accustomed, when 
quite alone and secure from observation, to drink 
what they called " strawberry tea," wishing no 
doubt to convey the idea that it was a decoction 
of the native plant. 1 have heard described in 
strong terms their fear, lest Mr. Livingston should 
discover that his house harbored the genuine Chi- 
nese herb. They well knew that he would not sell 
his birthright for a cup of tea. 

On the 26th of October, the Congress dissolved 
itself, after taking precautions to ensure the as- 
sembling of a similar body in the ensuing year. 
The members sought their homes, to diffuse 
among their constituents that wise and fearless 
spirit by which they were animated, and to dis- 
seminate the growing feelings of mutual respect 
and affection, together with that sense of the 
absolute necessity of union, which has so grown 
with the growth, and strengthened with the 
strength of our liberty, that we can now scarcely 
conceive of the one without the other. 



178 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Livingstan is returned to the second Congress in 1775 — 
His Opinions on the Subject of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence — Is recalled from Congress in June, 1776 — Takes 
command of the Militia at Elizabelhtown as Brigadier-general 
— Letter from Joseph Reed — Battle of Bushwick. 

The necessity of a second Congress became 
every day more and more apparent. Within a 
week after the dissolution of the first (3d Novem- 
ber), Connecticut appointed delegates to represent 
that colony in the body to be convened the 
following May, and New-Jersey was the fourth 
province to follow her example. The members 
of this second national assembly were in most 
instances chosen in a different manner from that 
in which the first had been; and the difference 
shows the constantly rising tone of public opinion. 
In 1774, the representatives were elected by depu- 
ties from towns and committees of correspondence,, 
five states only, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, 
Connecticut, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 
choosing them in Assembly. In 1775, with the 
exception of Maryland, New-Hampshire, Virginia, 
and New-York, where they were chosen either 
by deputies from towns or counties, all the dele- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 179 

gates were sent in a more authoritative form by 
the Assembly, or provincial congress of their re- 
spective colonies. 

On the 24th of January, 1775, the Assembly of 
New- Jersey, convened at Perth Amboy, unani- 
mously re-elected Kinsey, Crane, Livingston, De 
Hart, and Smith, delegates to represent the colony 
in the second Congress. At the opening of that 
body (11th May), they were all present. This 
Congress continued its sessions, with a short recess 
in the month of August, throughout the remainder 
of this year, and 1 have only to state as briefly as 
possible, Mr. Livingston's share in its labours, so 
far as can be collected from its journal. 

All the information on the subject is to be 
gathered from the appointment of committees, for 
the traditional information as to the part, if any, 
taken by him, in the papers drawn up by this body, 
is so slight and contradictory as not to command 
attention. 

On the 3d of June we find him placed with 
Deane, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, on a 
committee to prepare an address to the people of 
Ireland, which was reported on the 21st of July, 
and accepted on the 281 h.* On the 23d of the 
same month he was associated with J. Rutledge, 
Franklin, Jay, and Johnson, to draw up a declara- 
tion, to be published by General Washington upon 

• This document was attributed by Gov. Livingston's son, 
to his father's pen. 



180 THE LIFE OF 

his arrival at the camp before Boston. This was 
adopted on the 6th of July. 

On the 13th of November, we find him placed 
on a committee, with R. H. Lee and Wilson, to 
answer " sundry illegal ministerial proclamations" 
— on the 17th with John Adams, Franklin, Wythe, 
and others, to take into consideration the subject 
of naval prizes. On the 8th December, he was 
appointed to serve on the standing committee to 
examine the claims of apphcants for office in the 
army, and we again find him, on the 28th of the 
same month, placed on a committee with Lynch, 
Deane, Wythe, and Jay, to take into consideration 
the state of New-York and to report thereon. 

Mr. Livingston during this year was elected to 
serve upon eleven committees, and the duties as- 
signed to him will be found to have been arduous, 
and worthy of his previous reputation. It will be 
remembered that it was at this time the policy to 
place the more prominent colonies, particularly 
Virginia and Massachusetts, in the front rank of 
the national opposition; Adams, Lee, and Jay, in 
addition to their intrinsic merits, derived an adven- 
titious importance from the size, population, and 
wealth of the provinces they represented. 

Congress continued its session without intermis- 
sion into the year 1776, the representation of the 
different colonies changing as often as was ren- 
dered necessary by the gradual advance of public 
opinion. Mr. Livingston appears to have been in 
constant attendance at Philadelphia, and on the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. l8l 

14th February, the provincial congress of New- 
Jersey elected him for the third time, in conjunction 
with De H|§ rt. Smith , John Cooper, and Jonathan idli 
Dickinson Sergean^ to represent that province. 

On the 20th February, we find Livingston made 
a standing member of the common committee, and 
on the 4th March he was placed with Wilson, 
J. Adams, L. Morris, and Tilghman, on a com- 
mittee to whom was referred a memorial from the 
merchants of Montreal. On the 13th of the same 
month he moved for leaVe to introduce a resolu- 
tion appointing a fast, which was brought in by 
him on the 16th. This document is interesting as 
showing the temper both of the body, and of the 
mover at this time. 

It begins with a brief statement of the great 
distress, rendering a public acknowledgment of 
devotion to God peculiarly appropriate, " that we 
may humbly implore His assistance to frustrate the 
cruel purposes of our enemies, and by inclining their 
hearts to justice and benevolence, prevent the fur- 
ther effusion of kindred blood. But if," proceeds 
the writer, " continuing deaf to the voice of reason 
and humanity, and inflexibly bent on desolation 
and war, they constrain us to repel their hostile 
invasions by open resistance, may it please the 
Lord of Hosts, the God of armies, to animate our 
officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to 
guard and protect them in the day of battle, and 
to . crown the continental arms, by sea and land, 
with victory and success." Here we find no longer 



182 THE LIFE OF 

• the language of supplication and devotion to 

the crown, of ardent affection for the English, with 
V '• » which the earlier documents qf the revolution are 
filled. The tone is that of ,a people upon the 
, verge of rebellion — only deferred by their accus- 
tomed moderation, their abhorrence of bloodshed, 
and by the yet lingering prejudices of a century of 
colonial existence. 

On the 14th and 16th May, we find Livingston 
elected chairman of two committees, each con- 
sisting of himself, together with Jefferson, and J. 
Adams, to which were referred various letters. 
On the 21st of the same month, he was appointed 
with Adams, Jefferson, R. H. Lee, and Sherman, to 
prepare an address to the foreign mercenaries 
coming to invade America. 

On the 5th June, he was placed upon a commit- 
tee to consider of the ways and means to establish 
expresses between the several continental posts ; 
and on the same day, in obedience to t he command 7 ^ 
of the pr^ovjncid c^onye^ntiojijof hi^ colony, he leftj • 
Philadelphia, to take upon himself as brigadier- 
general, which rank he had received as early as 
A^ ^ the previous December,* the command of the New- 

* As I find by the endorsement of a letter from him among 
Lord Stirhng's correspondence, in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Library. 
I cannot, however, discover the exact date of this mihtary ap- 
pointment, or from what body he received it. The last meeting 
of the colonial Assembly of New-Jersey was in December, 1775. 
A provincial Congress sat in the preceding October, but I have 
seen np journal of its proceedings^ This was succeeded by a 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 18$ 

Jersey militia. The province was at this time 
threatened with the arrival of the British troops 
from Boston, under Sir William Howe, who an- 
chored off Staten Island on the 28th of the same 
month. 

The career of Mr. Livingston as a member of 
Congress, and his immediate connexion with the 
national councils, here closes ; and it is difficult to 
add any thing to that portion of the narrative we 
now leave. The members of the Federal Assem- 
bly with whom he was most intimate, so far as can 
now be learned from his correspondence, would 
appear to have been Jay, R. R. Livingston, James 
Duane, Harrison, Hooper of North Carolina, and 
Chase, and w.hen to these names are added those 
of Hancock and Jefferson, it is not difficult to con- 
jecture what was the general tone of his political 
sentiments. This is, however, to be taken with 
some deductions. 

Virginia and Massachusetts divide the honour 
of originating that resistance which terminated in 



committee of safety, which gave way in January, 1776, to the 

next meeting of the Congress, which lasted till March. A copy 

of the journal of this session is preserved in the State library at 

Trenton, and it is to be regretted that the Legislature, when it very 

laudably republished, in 1831, the record of the Congress held 

in-July and August, 1776, did not prefix that of the preceding y\A^\iJ'f 

session, which is now very rare. The first letter addressed to 

Livingston as brigadier-general, at Elizabethtown, is of the 6th 

June. As his name occurs on the journal of Congress the same 

day, there is probably an error in one of these dates. 



184 THE LIFE OF 

the creation of the i^pubhc ; the other provinces 
less immediately interested in the contest were 
gradually brought by the vigour and perseverance 
of the statesmen of these two colonies to embrace 
the alliance, and finally to acquiesce in the Declara- 
tion of Independence. "Without an American 
independent supreme government," says the in- 
trepid Hawley, " we shall always be but a rope of 
sand — you cannot declare independence too soon." 
" Some timid minds," says Gerry, " are terrified 
at the word independence."* These sentiments 
found a ready echo from the southern bank of the 
Potomac; but the middle colonies looked upon 
the question with very diflferent eyes. They had 
themselves suflfered little, if at all, from the Enghsh 
government. Under it they had prospered and mul- 
tiplied. It required of this part of the people great 
intrepidity, wisdom, and generosity to join their 
cause with that of men already stigmatized as rebels; 
nor did they bring themselves to this result until 
the last moment. By them, independence, instead 
of being considered as a real blessing, was looked 
upon but as a choice of evils. While they detested 
the oppression of Britain, they dreaded her power, 
and at the same time that they relied with the 
utmost confidence upon the justice of their own 
cause, they doubted their ability to support it. 
These doubts weighed upon the mind of Franklin 
to the last moment, and the patriotic Dickinson 

* Mr. Austin's Life of Gerry, pp. 161, 174, 185. See also the 
striking sketch of Hawley in Mr. Tudor's Otis. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 185 

could not prevail upon himself to sanction the final 
measure, even when determined on.* The same 
hesitation is expressed in the speeches of Wilson 
of Pennsylvania, R. R. Livingston, and E. Rutledge 
of South Carolina, as lately reported,t and it mate- 
rially influenced a large and important class of the 
pubhc men of that day, who, though thrown into 
the background at this time by the more thorough- 
going measures of the party headed by Adams 
and Jefferson, proved during the long contest which 
followed, that whatever might be the tenets of their 
political creed, they could never be wanting in de- 
votion to the common cause. 

Mr. Livingston certainly partook of these doubts 
as to the expediency of the final separation. In 
a letter to Henry Laurens, dated Lebanon Valley, 
.5th February, 1778, he says, " As to the pohcy of 
it, I then thought, and 1 have found no reason to 
change my sentiments since, that if we could not 
maintain our separation without the assistance of 
France, her alhance ought to have been secured 
by our stipulation to assert it upon that condition. 
This would have forced her out into open day, and 
we should have been certain either of her exphcit 

• I am not aware whether it is senerallv known that Dickin- ^ ^^ ^^>- 
^n, as early as July 1776 (as I find by a letter from him among^Jj^,,. -^ ^cX^ 
Mr. Livingston's correspondence), was in the military service ^7«^ n. X< i^^t « 
upon the lines of New-Jersey and New- York. It shows how^^^^^ ^*^^'f^f 
Utile personal considerations had to do with his opposition to the 
Declaration of Independence. 

t Jefferson's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 10. 

A A 



186 THE LIFE OP 

avowal or of the folly»of our dependency upon it." 
In a letter of the 6th May, 1778, as will subse- 
quently appear, Laurens replies, " 1 am happy in 
being entirely of opinion with your excellency re- 
specting independence." 

Entertaining these doubts as to the policy of 
the Declaration, Mr. Livingston first assumed a 
prominent military command, and immediately 
afterwards accepted one of the most obnoxious 
civil stations on the whole continent. If then his 
fears on this subject compel us to deduct some- 
thing from the soundness, something from the 
enlargement of his political views, is it to be per- 
mitted that when courage and honesty are called 
in question, he should rank a single grade lower 
than any one of those whose clearer judgment or 
happier temperament enabled them to enter upon 
the contest without tremor or hesitation } 

The feelings with which Mr. Livingston acceded 
to the decision of his countrymen are well and 
fully expressed in the letter already quoted. "We 
must endeavour to make the best of every thing. 
Whoever draws his sword against his prince must 
fling away the scabbard. We have passed the 
Rubicon, and whoever attempts to recross it will be 
knocked in the head, by the one or the other party 
on the opposite banks. We cannot recede, nor 
should I wish it if we could. Great Britain must 
infaUibly perish, and that speedily by her own cor- 
ruption, and I never loved her so much as to wish 
to keep her company in her ruin." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 187 

In the following extract from Livingston's first 
speech to the Assembly of New-Jersey, delivered 
13th September, 1776, can be discerned the same 
spirit of caution and deliberation influencing his 
mind before the final measure was determined on, 
and the same earnest, I had almost said, chiv- 
alric defence of it, after its adoption. " Consider- 
ing how long the hand of oppression had been 
stretched out against us," he says, " reason and 
conscience must have approved the measure had 
we sooner abjured that allegiance, from which not 
only by the denial of protection, but the hostile as- 
saults on our persons and properties, we were 
clearly absolved. It may, however, aflford some 
consolation to every man duly regardful of the 
convictions of his own mind, and the honour and 
reputation of his country, that America deferred 
this important step till the decisive alternative of 
absolute submission or utter destruction, announced 
by a numerous fleet and army, had extinguished 
all hope of obtaining justice, and that the whole 
continent, save a few self-interested individuals, 
were unanimous in the separation." 

1 should not have gone into this subject at such 
length, were it not that Mr. Livingston has been 
made the subject of a charge from a quarter of 
high authority, which it is proper here to repel ; 
and 1 do it with the more willingness because with 
slight alterations these remarks may serve as a de- 
fence of others implicated with him. Mr. Adams, 
in a letter to Mr. Jefierson, of the 17th Sept, 1823, 



188 THE LIFE OF 

published shortly afterwards in various papers of 
the day, says, speaking of Mr. Jay, " I have no 
doubt, had he been in Congress at the time, he 
would have subscribed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; he would not have left Congress like 
Governor Livingston and others."^ This must be 
supposed to imply, that the individuals referred to 
left Philadelphia in order to avoid the responsibility 
of acceding to a measure which they did not 
dare openly oppose, and cannot be understood to 
embrace a case hke that of Dickinson, who with- 
stood the project at all times, and withdrew from 
Congress avowedly on the ground of his repug- 
nance to it. 

No American will consider himself justified by 
any personal pique or partiahtyin speaking lightly 
of the eminent writer of the letter above quoted ; 
but it is doing him no injustice to say, that the 
same ardor and earnestness which made him, in 
the language of his distinguished fellow-laborer, 
• "the colossus of the first Congress," frequently led 
him into manifestations of feeling and expressions 
of opinion which a more dehberate judgment 
would have condemned. I have no wish to refute, 
at any length, a charge unsubstantiated by any 
fact, and which is disproved not less by Mr. Living- 
ston's conduct at this particular time, than by the 
whole tenor of his life. The statement as it stands 
should certainly never have appeared in print. It 
is calculated from its vagueness to mislead others, 
as undoubtedly Mr. Adams was misled himself. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 189 

Who are these " others" thus hastily and peremp- 
torily stigmatized with a cowardly desertion of 
their trust? Chnton, R. R. Livingston, and Alsop'^^^^'^^'^'^ ^ 
of New- York, Sergeant of New-Jersey, Dickinson l'J*!X*^J^-L 
of Pennsylvania, and Tilghman and Rogers ofV4^^*<^X7BU 
Maryland, all left Congress subsequent to Mr. l*fr!i^^%u!i!l*^ 
Livingston's departure, and before the final vote. / 1'^^ /»* #>•»<>- 
Are all, or any, and who of these, alluded to in Mr.j 
Adams's letter ?* 

Regarding the Declaration of Independence, as 
the most important and most familiar paper of 
that time, as a document which, unless we are 
blinded by a national egotism, must endure through 
all time, it cannot be doubted that the individuals 
whose names are affixed to it have acquired an 
enviable immortahty, and every person interested 
in the reputation of the members above mentioned 
must regret that they were prevented, by whatever 
cause, from signing it. But if it be examined in an 
historical point of view, there is much reason to 
believe that both with regard to the act itself, and 

* The last mention of Rogers in the journal is of the 5th of 
June ; of Tilghman and Sergeant on the 6th ; of Dickinson and 
R. R. Livingston on the 12th; of^ Clmton on the_24th , and of ^S^^^ii^^ (^^, 
Alsop on the 28tlv^ It should be stated that at the time the j^ ^^^ 7'!^^ 
above letter of Mr. Adams appeared, a reply to it was published 
by an eminent friend of Mr. Livingston's family, and for a copy 
of this answer, without which indeed I might not have been 
made aware of the charge, I beg leave here to express my 
obligation. Gordon, in his Letters, ed. 1788, vol. ii. p.*2-77, has 
an allusion to this matter, but his general inaccuracy renders his 
authority of small value. . ^..^ 



rt 



190 THE LIFE OP 

the indiv^iduals wh6 assented to it, considerable 
misunderstanding exists. The epochas and eras 
into which the annals of every nation and every 
age are divided, grow often out of the imagination 
of historians and of posterity. To the actors in 
the scenes these striking contrasts and abrupt 
revolutions rarely exist ; one event glides after 
another, and one modification of opinion is grad- 
ually succeeded by others ; but the connecting 
links of the chain are soon lost ; changes which 
appeared necessary, and were expected by those 
who marked the progress of affairs, and traced 
feelings from their source to their results, seem 
to a subsequent generation, not possessed of the 
same opportunity of observation, sudden and 
extraordinary. 

When our independence was declared, it must 
be recollected that a government was estabhshed, 
armies were organized, and blood had been shed. 
The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had 
been fought; Ticonderoga and Crown Point 
were taken ; Virginia had been ravaged by Dun- 
more, and Montgomery had fallen under the 
walls of Quebec. War had already, in fact, 
existed between England and the united colo- 
nies for more than a year. It must be re- 
membered, too, that the p rincipal provinces had 
instructed their delegates to vote for^ the sepa- 
rat ion, ^ and the temper of all was known to 
be in favour of it. The representatives of the 
people did then what they have done ever 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 191 

since. They followed, and did not attempt to 
outstrip, the current of public opinion. In fact, the 
principal difference of sentiment in the body ap- 
pears to have been, whether their allegiance should 
be thrown off at that particular moment. It is 
with reference to this that Franklin is understood 
to have opposed it, and that Robert Morris called 
it a year afterwards " a premature declaration."* 
As to the danger which the members incurred, 
and the responsibility they took upon themselves 
in signing the declaration, there is also much ex- 
aggeration. Those who urged the measure, as in 
particular the Massachusetts and Virginia repre- 
sentatives, had already passed the Rubicon. Han- 
cock and Adams, who had been proscribed in 
1774 , can scarcely be thought to have run any /***^ 
new risk in 1776. If there were many eminent 
men in that Congress, there were also several who 
were quite obscure ; and when we for a moment 
suppose the revolution to have terminated un- 
fortunately, is it to be imagined that these dele- 
gates, most of whom signed the declaration in 
pbedience to positive instructions^ would have 
been deemed more culpable than those who were 
in arms against the mother country — than men of 
more note, who were pressing the same scheme in 
the separate colonies, and in the primary as- 
semblies ? Is it to be believed that the ministerial 
vengeance would have overlooked John Jay, or 



• Mr. Sparks' Gouv. Morris, vol. i. p. 231.. 



192 THE LIFE OF 

McDougall, or even Sears of New-York, and sought 
out John Hart of New-Jersey? or that Patrick 
Henry would have been pardoned, and John 
Morton condemned, for high treason ? 

While upon this subject, the following letter 
from the above named signer may be found 
curious, as showing the imperfect attainments of 
one member of the celebrated body of which I 
have been speaking. 

« Sir, 
" The House of Assembly Request that your 
Exelency Direct Mr. Colings* to print fifty Cop- 
pies of the Law for purching Cloathing for the 
New-Jersey Redgment and transmit the same ta 
your Excelency as soon as possable. 
" I am Sir 

" Youre Humble Sevant 

"John Hart." 

" To his Excelency William Liveingston. 
"Princetown, November 25th, ]777."t 



• Isaac Collins, State-printer, the father of the enterprising* 
gentlemen of the same name, now and for a long time extensively 
engaged in the bookselling business in the city of New-York. 

t The original of this curious document is now in the pos- 
session of the Rev. W. B. Sprague of Albany, a gentleman who, 
in addition to discharging the responsible duties imposed upon 
him by his profession, has amused that portion of his leisure not 
devoted to the pursuit of general literature, in getting together a 
large and valuable collection of manuscripts. It could be wished 
that this example were more generally followed. No one who 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 193 

Hart was one of the very few exceptions to the,\yj,j,^ ^^ 
general cultivation and accomplishment of the * X%NN %% 
members of the second Congress. He was a 
plain, honest and substantial farmer ; was a mem- 
ber of the Colonial Assembly, and of the Provincial 
Congress of New-Jersey ; after he returned from 
Philadelphia was made a member of the Legisla- 
ture, and at the time this letter was written was 
speaker of the Assembly. His firm and estimable , 
character would probably have raised him to a ' 

more conspicuous position, had not his career * *^ 

been cut short by his death, which took place at 
an early period in the revolutionary contest. He ^-^ 

died, I believe, in 1778.* 

This long digression closed, we return to the 
main subject. The private views of Mr. Living- 
ston on this question do not furnish the reason why 
his name is not affixed to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. It was not in his nature to shrink from''/"- 7" 
any duty, and he made his own opinion on subjects j*^ ^JU^^ ' 
of national interest, where no moral question in- ^i^ ^^, ^ 
tervened, yield to the sentiment of his fellow-citi-'n«j5s' /K^ / 

has had occasion in reference to any particular portion of our 
history to hunt up original authorities, can fail to have lamented 
the general indifference with which these valuable relics of a 
former day are treated : not only in most cases is no care shown 
to preserve them, but they are often destroyed with a reckless- 
ness, which, irreparable as its consequences frequently are, can 
scarcely be excused under the plea of ignorance. 
* Vid. his life in Saunderson's Biog. of the Signers. 



194 THE LIFE OP 

^^ i^,^^^ zens. When h e was 'rec alled^ from Congress, the?^^^ 
eA^C€(K ? instructions under which he acted did not authorizej. 'hrl 
iLL^'njo^ him to accede to any final measure. The dele^^ 
/f^i^e ,]iif) gates who were thus empowered received their 
*#<i!/^*j&». appointment from the Provincial Convention on the 
^jj^, /t. ^ 21st of June,* and the following letter to Samuel- 
^ ^Kt^aTTi^f. Tucker,t president of that body, dated Brunswick, 
^f *^ 9th Auffust, 1776, shows him to have been some- 

^^f-t^} . fj^ what irritated at not being allowed to return to 
iff*^^*^ Congress, to act under those instructions. It may 
^^ ' have been supposed that he would be more useful 

L^ '^^v' — "in his military command, than in voting upon a 
^uA<0icVu. question already decided. After denying one or two 
,^^ f'^^^^t. imputations of language disrespectful to the Con- 
/7 7 ft. vention in a previous letter, he continues : — " With 

respect to what was said about the delegates for 
the Congress, I did really mean to resent the con- 
duct of those of your members who assigned the 
my being appointed to the command of that brig- 
ade" (probably a brigade destined for New-York) 
%%^C >-»'*: " ^s a reason against my being eligible as a mem- 






* This delegation, consisting of Witherspoon, Stockton, and 
others, arrived after the Declaration had been signed, but were 
dUojved to affix their names to i? — Vid. R. H. Lee's Mem. vol. i. 
p. 183. 

t The case of Tucker is a strong one to show the panic which 
seized many of the leaders of the whig party, on the invasion of the 
British. He was president of the Convention which formed the 
constitution of the State, and was in the fall of 1776 appointed 
treasurer, and subsequently judge of the Supreme Court ; but in 
December he took a protection from the British, and thus vacated 
his offices. — Vid. Jour. N. J. Assem. 17th Dec. 1777. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 195 

ber of Congress, when I had plainly refused that 
command in the presence of the Convention." 

Early in June, as has been stated, Mr. Living- 1 
ston took post at Elizabethtown, as commander- \ 
in-chief of the New-Jersey militia, there being at ' / ^ 2. .- c^ 
this time no other state officer of equal rank with J 
himself. Elizabethtown Point, one of the most '^c *>*-# u 
exposed parts of New-Jersey, on the side of the * ^ T^ 
expected invasion, had been among the earliest to » ^^j^ ^* 
be put in a state of defence, and the importance // /& rnU^' 
of the post was about this time (28th June) very Ht**^ ft^ ^' 
much increased by the arrival of Sir William Howe ^'^ '>*^'^ ■ 
off Staten Island.* From this period, indeed, the ^^ 
command was one of incessant vigilance and anx- 
iety, and nothing but an earnest desire to answer 
every call made upon him by his country, could 
have induced Livingston to accept a situation 
which, as his letters show, was extremely irksome 
to him. All the habits of his life were averse to 
his present occupation, and although not called 
into active service, still in the fidelity with which ' 
he discharged the new duties incumbent upon him, 
in his strenuous endeavours to imbody and to dis- 
cipline the militia of his colony, we find that spirit 
and capability of adaptation to circumstances 

* An anecdote is told of the fortification of this post, illustra- 
tive of the crude military knowledge of the Americans. The 
persons to whom the duty was intrusted thought that all was 
completed when ditches were dug, and ramparts thrown up, 
across the principal roads ; " forgetting," as my informant said, 
" that the enemy could jump over the fence." 



196 



THE LIFE OF 



which supply perhaps* the best test and definition 
of genius. 

The effects of war upon private comfort and 
happiness soon made themselves apparent. Mr. 
Livingston's family about this time abandoned their 
home, which was no longer considered a safe resi- 
^i% iT dence, and for four years they made no other than 

y^ *fc* ^ ji - transient visits to it.* On the 28th of June, Adjutant 
• . •.tX%% .Joseph Reed was sent over to Ehzabethtown by 
•^ |S^ \ Washington to confer with General Livingston on 
'♦\ *^***" the subject of calling out the militia; and the fol- 
lowing letter written about this time will show 
,'X_\ some of the difficulties which embarrassed the 
resources of the province. 

" TO GENERAL LIVINGSTON. 

" Lebanon township, Hunterdon co. ) 
June 30, 1776. \ 

" Dear General, 

" Being called into this part of the country upon 

some private business of my own, and having the 

general good always at heart, I have taken some 

* The winter of 1776-77 was spent by Mr. Livingston's fam- 
ily among their relatives at Baskenridge, in Somerset county. 
In the next spring Mrs, Livingston, liking the proximity of the 
American army almost as little as that of the enemy, determined 
to return to Ehzabethtown. She was actually on her way 
thither with her daughters, when she was met by General Wash- 
ington, who representing the great risk she would run in her own 
house, she changed her purpose and fixed her residence at Perce- 
pany, where the family principally spent the next three and a 
half years. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 197 

pains to inquire as to the state of the new levies, and 
from what I can collect, 1 beheve the companies in 
this county are not above half full, although some of 
the companies have augmented the bounty to eight 
pounds prock.* In Somerset, I believe, 'tis not 
much better. * * * 

" There are numbers of tenants that say if they 
are taken away at this season of the year, they 
may as well knock their families in the head, for that 
they will be ruined. At a muster some time past, 
in order to recruit men, one half of two companies 
came with clubs ; Colonel Johnson was knocked 
down by them, and was afterwards obliged to re- 
treat ; the same day one of the captains was much 

beat by them. has been to Congress, and 

has obtained an order for taking them up. * * * 
•When the militia collected they dispersed, and 
several that were called tories have since appeared 
to be staunch whigs, and as long as they are kept 
in fear, I suppose will continue such. * * * 

" Edward Thomas." 

Livingston's letters written about this period 
show the anxiety with which he devoted himself 
to the cause. " I must acknowledge to you," he 
says in a letter to the provincial Congress of the 
6th of July, " that 1 feel myself unequal to the pres- 
ent important command, and therefore wish for 



* Proclamation money, issued by the colony, and afterwards by 
the State. 



198 THE LIFE OF 

every assistance in my power. I could wish to 
have the Congress much nearer. The number of 
men that are now in the service here loudly call 
for more ample supplies of almost every neces- 
sary (except provisions) than can be obtained here, 
such as ammunition, flints, arms, and indeed stores 
of every kind, an attention to which I cannot give in 
the manner I could choose in the present exigency." 
In a letter to the president of the provincial 
Congress, dated the 3d of July, he says, "The 
difficulty of sending so many expresses to every 
quarter leads me humbly to suggest the propriety, 
at least, if not the absolute necessity, of removing 
your sessions to some place nearer the scene of 
action." The Congress was at this time sitting at 
Burhngton; the force of the arguments used to 
persuade them to approach nearer to the lines, 
induced them to adjourn to Trenton, on the 4th 
of July, and finally to remove to New-Brunswick 
on the 22d. It may be here mentioned that Ehas 
Boudinot, subsequently conspicuous in our his- 
tory, was at this time General Livingston's aid- 
de-camp. 

In compliance with the repeated wish of Living- 
ston, General Hugh Mercer was, on the 6th of July, 
detached from New-York to New-Jersey, and after 
spending a day or two together in conference at 
Elizabethtown, the latter proceeded to Amboy, 
thus relieving General Livingston of a portion of 
his difficult duty. If all the letters of Washington, 
Reed, Mercer, and Livingston himself, belonging 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 199 

to this period, which appear important or interest- 
ing, were to be printed, this volume would be 
swelled far beyond its prescribed limits. I must 
therefore hurry on to the entrance of the subject 
of this memoir upon a new sphere of action. 

About the middle of August, a large portion of 
the militia of New-Jersey was imbodied, a flying 
camp organized, several new general officers called 
into service, and Livingston's command was re- 
duced to the post at Elizabethtown, held by a force 
varying from a thousand to fifteen hundred men. 
The situation seems still to have been sufficiently 
arduous, and the following letter to WilHam 
Hooper, delegate in Congress from North Caro- 
lina, will best show its character. 

" Camp at Elizabethtown-Point, ) 
29th August, 1776. ) 

" Dear Sir, 
" I received yours of yesterday's date, just after 
I had got into my new habitation, which is a 
marquee tent in our encampment here. You would 
really be astonished to see how grand I look, 
while at the same time 1 can assure you 1 Avas 
never more sensible (to use a New-England 
phrase) of my own nothingness in military affiiirs. 
I removed my quarters from the town hither to be 
with the men, and to enure them to disciphne, 
which by my distance from the camp before, con- 
sidering what scurvy subaltern officers we are 
ever like to have while they are in the appointment 



200 THE LIFE OF 

of the mobility, 1 foftnd it impossible to introduce. 
And the worst men (was there a degree above the 
superlative) would be still pejorated, by having 
been fellow-soldiers with that disciphne-hating, 
goodliving-loving, " to eternal fame damn'd," cox- 
combical crew we lately had here from Philadel- 
phia. My ancient corporeal fabric is almost 
tottering under the fatigue I have lately undergone : 
constantly rising at 2 o'clock in the morning, to 

examine our lines, which are and 

very extensive, till daybreak, and from that time 
perpetually till eleven in giving orders, sending 
despatches, and doing the proper business of 
quarter-masters, colonels, commissaries, and 1 
know not what. * * * 

" 1 have not been able to learn the particulars 
of Colonel Tidwitz's crime. The report here is, 
that he was bribed by Governor Try on to poison 
the well in the fortress he commanded, and that 
the letters were intercepted, and the poison was 
actually found in his chest ; but it is folly to depend 
upon reports. When I can learn the particulars 
in a manner authentic, I shall be happy in finding 
an excuse for troubling my friend with another 
letter from . 

" Your most humble Serv't, 

" WiL. Livingston." 

The following description of the battle of Bush- 
wick by an eyewitness will, perhaps, best close 
this portion of my narrative. 



william livingston. 201 

" to general livingston. 
" Dear Sir, 
" Though I am much fatigued, not having had 
my cloaths off since Monday evening, and no sleep 
for two nights, I sit down chearfully to comply 
with your request. On General Green's being 
sick, Sullivan took the command, who was wholly 
unacquainted with the ground or country. Some 
movements being made which the general did not 
approve entirely, and finding a great force going to 
Long Island, he sent over Putnam, who had been 
over occasionally : this gave some disgust, so that 
Putnam was directed to soothe and soften as much 
as possible. In this condition things were, and 
growing more critical. Lord Stirling went over ; 
some regiments were also sent : they were ordered 
to lay in a wood near Flatbush; but the road 
from Jamaica having been neglected, they were 
surprised on Tuesday morning. The picquet of 
800 men, I fear, mostly ran off at the first fire ; but 
several regiments being ordered out, and ignorant 
of the Jamaica rout, as soon as they engaged they 
found themselves surrounded, so that they were 
obliged to cut their way thro'. Many of them, 
behaved well and have suffered accordingly. Our 
loss I compute at 700 men, 2 general officers, 
Sulhvan and Stirling; 9 colonels and lieutenant- 
colonels, 2 or 3 majors, and several other officers. 
The two first are prisoners and well used ; we had 
a letter from Sullivan yesterday. Colonels killed 
and missing are Atlee, Miles, Piper, Parry, (killed). 

cc 



202 THE LIFE OF 

Lieutenant-colonels Johnson, Lutz, Kacklin, Clark, 

Major Burd, and one or two I don't 

The principal loss has fallen on 1st Pennsylvania 
Battalion, Atlee, Smallwood, Huntington, and Has- 
let's, all of whom behaved so as to command the 
admiration of all those who beheld the engage- 
ment. My lord,* who loved discipline, made a 
mistake, which probably affected us a great deal : 
he would not suffer his regiments to break, but 
kept them in lines and on open ground. The 
enemy, on the other hand, possessed themselves of 
the woods, fences, &c., and having the advantage 
of numbers, perhaps ten to one, our troops lost 
every thing but honour ; his personal bravery was 
very conspicuous. As this wood made a capital 
part of the Long Island defence, and Lord Howe 
was every day attempting with the wind ahead to 
get up to town, it became a serious consideration 
whether we ought to risk the fate of the army, and 
perhaps America, on defending the circle of about 
three miles, fortified with a few strong redoubts, 
but chiefly open lines. When the heavy rains 
came on, not half of the men had tents ; they lay 
out in the lines, their arms, ammunition, &c. all 
got wet; they began to sink under the fatigues and 
hardships. The enemy at the same time possessed 
themselves of a piece of ground very advantageous, 
and of which they had . We were there- 
fore reduced to the alternative of retiring to this 

* Lord Stirling, no doubt. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 203 

place, or going out with to drive 

them off; it was unanimously agreed to retire, and 
measures taken to execute it, which was done, in 
the face of their army, so effectually that between 
sunset and sunrise our men, ammunition, all our 
artillery (except 5 pieces of heavy cannon), the 
greatest part of our prisoners, were got off un- 
discovered and safely landed here. We shall now 
therefore have our whole strength collected to- 
gether, and govern ourselves accordingly. We 
took 30 prisoners, and 1 officer from the enemy, 
and have reason to think their loss also consider- 
able. In Gen. Sullivan's note he says. Lord Stir- 
ling will be exchanged for either of their brigadiers; 
from which we suppose two are killed, as they are 
not in our hands. A sergeant brought in a laced 
hat, shot through, and the name of Colonel Grant 
wrote in it, from which we suppose he is certainly 
killed, and may be Gen. Grant, since promoted. 

" 1 have given you the substance, and I beheve 
it is pretty exact. 

" I am, with great truth and esteem, &c., 
" Your most obed. humble Serv't. 

"Jos. Reed. 

♦♦ August 30th, 1776." 



.>9^^f 






204 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER VII. 

• General Livingston elected Governor of the State of New-Jersey 
in August, 1776 — His Exertions to rouse the People — Battle of 
Trenton — Letter from Lord Stirling — Notices of that Officer's 
Life. 1777 — Difficulties of the Government of the State — Let- 
ters from Washington and Putnam — Militia Law — The Coun- 
cil of Safety — Livingston's Hostility to the Tories — Letter from 
Brockholst Livingston — Notices of his Life — Livingston unani- 
mously re-elected Governor in November — Contributes to the 
New-Jersey Gazette, under the signature of Hortentius. 

The first Legislature of New-Jersey, chosen 
under the republican constitution, which had been 
promulgated on the 2d July,* assembled at Prince- 

* The Declaration of Lidependence was made on the 4th of 
July, 1776. The confederation was acceded to, at different 
periods, from 1778 to 1781. Were not all the States — was not, 
for instance, the State of New- Jersey an absolutely sovereign 
power, from the 2d July, 1776, to November 26th, 1778 (at 
which time her delegates signed the articles of confederation)? 
If not so independent, upon whom did she depend ? The Decla- 
ration of the 4th of July, although made for greater effect 
jointly, certainly formed no union of the colonies, any more than 
the non-importation agreement signed by the members of the 
first Congress. Moreover, some of the states had completely, 
and all of them partially, established separate independent gov- 
» . ernments prior to the Declaration of Independence. New- 

/ A*4C^J6rsey, on the 28lh of June, authorized her delegates to accede 
to the separation, and her present constitution bears date the 2d 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 205 

ton on the 27th August, 1776, and on the 31st of 
the same month, in joint ballot of the Assembly 
and Legislative Council, William Livingston was 
elected governor of the new state. Within a few 
days after receiving the intelhgence, General Liv- 
ingston resigned his command at Ehzabethtown, 
and repairing to Princeton, was on the 7lh Septem- 
ber inaugurated in his office. 

The opposing candidate at this election was 
Richard Stockton, well known as one of the signers 
of the Declaration of independence. On the first 
balloting the votes were equally divided,* and it 
was not till the next day that the two parties coa- 
lesced in support of Mr. Livingston. The defeat 
of the unsuccessful candidate has given rise to a 
charge against his patriotism, first, I believe, stated 



July. Even if the Declaration formed a union (of which it pre- 
scribes no terms, and for the violation of which it provides no 
penalty), was not New-Jersey an independent power from the 
28th of June, or the 2d of July to the 4th July ? Nor are these 
questions to be derided as metaphysical. Were the States now 
forming the union ever, though but for a day, sovereign, self-ex- 
istent communities ? Did they accede to the constitution as such 
sovereign, self-existent communities ? These propositions are 
matters of fact — they must be determined before any accurate 
idea can be had of the constitution ; and accordingly as they are 
differently answered, will our opinions of the rights of the States 
and the powers of the federal government widely and most ma- 
terially differ. 

* Vid. the printed minutes of the joint meeting in N. J. State 
Library at Trenton. 

^«t?'. viv*y/7*iy f/^^eA..h. .<i,$-/>'>- 



206 THE LIFE OF 

by Gordon,* and wafmly denied by the writer in 
Saunderson's Biography of the Signers. Tt is not 
my place here to go into any defence of Mr. Stock- 
ton against an accusation on its face not very 
probable, and which would almost appear to be 
refuted by the hereditary character of his family. 
On the contrary, it speaks highly for Mr. Living- 
ston, that a residence of but four years in New- 
Jersey should have enabled him to obtain a ma- 
jority over a native of the province, who had been 
one of its judicial officers under the crown, and 
who was held in sufficient consideration to be 
elected chief justice of the State by this same 
Legislature, the day after his defeat as candidate 
for the office of governor; and we are easily re- 
conciled to the hard-won success of Mr. Living- 
ston, in this instance, over such an antagonist, when 
we know that all his subsequent elections were 
unanimous or obtained by large majorities.! 
On the 13th of September, Governor Living- 

• Hist. Am. Rev. ed. 17.88, vol. ii. p. 300. 

t Among Governor Livingston's MSS. I have the answer of 
John Stevens to the memorial of the Hon. R. Stockton. It is 
addressed to the Legislature, and is connected with this subject. 
I am told by a person formerly intimate with John Cleve 
Symmes, at this time a member of the Council, that he often said 
between jest and earnest, " that he made Mr. Livingston 
governor." Whether by this is meant, that on the final vote, 
Gov. L. had only a bare majority, or that Mr. Symmes induced 
the adherents of Mr. Stockton to join those who were in favour 
of his rival, I doubt whether there are now any means of ascer- 
taining. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 207 

ston delivered to the Legislature his first speech. 
It was an earnest of his after-course. "Let us, 
gentlemen," so closes this earnest call for their 
warmest sympathies, and most vigorous exertions 
in the American cause, " both by precept and prac- 
tice, encourage a spirit of economy, industry, and 
patriotism, and that public integrity and righteous- 
ness which cannot fail to exalt a nation ; setting 
our faces at the same time like a flint against that 
dissoluteness of manners and- political corruption 
which will ever be the reproach of any people. 
May the foundation of our infant state be laid in 
virtue and the fear of God, and the superstructure 
will rise glorious and endure for ages. Then may 
we humbly expect the blessing of the Most High, 
who divides to the nation their inheritance, and 
SEPARATES the SOUS of Adam. In fine, gentlemen, 
while we are applauded by the whole world for de- 
molishing the old fabric, rotten and ruinous as it 
was, let us unitedly strive to approve ourselves 
master builders, by giving beauty, strength and 
stability to the new." From an expression in this 
paragraph, and from his inflexible impartiality, the 
new governor was for some time after this famil- 
iarly known among the people of Jersey by the 
name of " Doctor Fhnt ;" and an anecdote is told 
of Mr. Ames, from some momentary confusion of 
ideas, " setting the table in a roar," at a dinner in 
New-York where he met Governor Livingston, by 
asking " Dr. Flint, whether the town of Trenton 
w as well or ill disposed to the new constitution." 



208 THE LIFE OF 

The following letter is from Brigadier-general 
Maxwell, a native of the State of New-Jersey, 
at this time I believe holding the rank of colonel, 
and who proved himself a highly respectable officer 
on more than one occasoin during the war. 

" to governor livingston. 
« Sir, 

" I heartily congratulate you on the honourable 
promotion you have had, viz. to be the first governor 
of the free State of New-Jersey : as it is a plant 
you have had a great share in raising and pruning, 
I wish you sincerely a long and happy enjoyment 
of the fruits of your labour. 

"1 will try to give you some account of our affairs 
here at present, in a private way. You must have 
heard that a few days ago we had a fine fleet and 
tolerably good army. But General Arnold, our evil 
genius to the north, has with a good deal of industry 
got us clear of all our fine fleet, only five of the most 
indifferent of them, one row-galley, excepted; and he 
has managed his point so well with the old man, 
the general, that he has got his thanks for his good 
services. Our fleet, by all impartial accounts, was 
much the strongest, but he suffered himself to be 
surrounded between an island and the main land, 
where the enemy landed their men on both places, 
and annoyed our men from both place's, more than 
from their vessels; but still our people repelled 
them with ease the first afternoon. In the night, 
he gave orders to every vessel to make the best of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 209 

their way, by which they became an easy prey, beat 
by one, twos, and threes, and ran them on shore, or 
destroyed them all: but one row-galley fell into 
their hands. This was a pretty piece of admiralship 
after going to their doors almost, and bantering 
them for two months or more, contrary to the 
opinion of all the army. Had we our fleet here 
we would give ourselves but little concern about 
the enemy. 

" If they do come and attack us, as is gener- 
ally thought, we have no more opinion of his abili- 
ties by land than water. I am something of opin- 
ion they will not come, but be contented for this 
time, as they have done more than they had any 
reason to expect. I am, sir, your most obedient 
humble servant, Wm. Maxwell." 

" Ticonderoga, 20th Oct. 1776." 

It becomes somewhat difficult to do justice to 
that portion of Governor Livingston's life upon 
which we now enter, without going more at large 
than is desirable, into a narrative of those facts 
which properly belong to a history of the revolu- 
tionary war, the principal scenes of which, for two 
years subsequent to this period were acted in New- 
Jersey.* A glance at the principal events of the 

* A minute and accurate accoiiat of the war in New-Jer- 
sey, is still a desideratum in our history. The papers of Wash- 
ington, Stirhng, Greene, Livingston, Putnam, and Mercer, if pre- 
served, would probably furnish ample materials for the under- 
taking. 

D D 



210 THE LIFE OF 

campaign of 1776 will show how important the 
administration of the State had now become, 
and how much depended upon the ability, in- 
dustry, and devotion of the governor. On the 
fifteenth of September the city of New-York 
fell into the hands of the British; two months 
were consumed by the hostile armies on the east 
bank of the Hudson : but when, on the sixteenth 
of November, the fall of Fort Washington was 
followed by the passage of the Hudson under 
Cornwallis, by the abandonment of Fort Lee, 
and by the rapid retreat of the American troops, 
the scene of action was immediately transferred to 
the heart of New-Jersey. 

Governor Livingston made the most strenuous 
exertions with the Assembly and with the people, 
to have the militia in the field in time to oppose 
the invading force. In addition to writing person- 
ally to all the State officers of the rank of colonel, 
he issued printed circulars in his own name in 
every direction, to arouse and keep alive the spirit 
of resistance.* But the efforts of the few could 
not control the panic which had seized upon the 
mass of the population. This was the most 
gloomy period of the war. The bare-footed and 
ragged American army retreating before the well- 
appointed troops of the enemy, impaired the con- 
fidence of the people, not less in the ability of 
Washington than in their own resources. The 

* Some of tliese circulars still remain among his MSS. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 211 

defenceless Legislature, with their governor at 
their head, wandered from Princeton to Burling- 
ton, from Burlington to Pitt's Town, from Pitt's 
Town to Haddonfield, and there finally, at the 
utmost verge of the State, dissolved themselves on 
the 2d of December, leaving each member to look 
to his own safety, at a moment when the efforts 
of legislators could be of no avail, and when there 
was no place where they could safely hold their 
sessions. There scarcely remained a vestige of 
the lately constituted government, or any who 
owed it allegiance, and until the battle of Trenton 
(25th of December), New-Jersey might have been 
considered as a conquered territory. This suc- 
cess revived the hopes of the well-affected. The 
British retreated, and of the conquest then wrested 
from them, they never again repossessed them- 
selves. The following letter from Lord Stirling 
will serve to illustrate the spirit which the victory 
alluded to infused into the Americans. 

"TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

"New Town, December 28th, 1776. 
"My dear Sir, 
" I dare say you have heard of our little expedi- 
tion to Trentown, on the night of the 25th : the 
result was, that we made a most complete surprise 
on them, and have taken and killed at least 1200 
of the best of Hessian troops, with their artillery and 
stores. The effect is amazing, the enemy have 
deserted Borden Town, Black Horse, Burlington, 



212 THE LIFE OF 

Mount Holly, and are ffed to South Amboy ; we are 
now in possession of all those places, and the spirit 
of that part of the country is roused ; every part of 
New-Jersey will take spirit if proper measures be 
adopted; it will in New-Jersey now greatly de- 
pend on your Legislature exerting themselves ; the 
speaker of your Assembly has summoned its 
members to be at the Four Lanes, about four miles 
from hence on Thursday next ; it will be of infinite 
use that you and some of your Council could be 
there at the same time, in order to have an im- 
mediate meeting of your Legislature. I hope we 
shall soon be in full possession of New-Jersey, but 
there is an absolute necessity of a new arrange- 
ment of the officers of your quota of the troops 
for the continental service. As things now stand 
no man of spirit will serve, nor will any one exert 
themselves in the recruiting service untill the ap- 
pointments of officers is altered; if this is not 
immediately done the force of New-Jersey is lost. 
Come, for God sake, and see these matters regu- 
lated, let merrit in service, and not dirty connec- 
tions, take place. Excuse all this freedom ; 1 write 
this at the request of General Washington, with a 
very lame hand, but 1 hope it will be well enough 
to give them another drubbing soon. I had the 
honour to make two regiments of them surrender 
prisoners of war, and to treat them in such a style 
as will make the rest of them more willing to 
surrender than to fight. 

" Several regiments of the continental troops are 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 213 

now in Morris county, and some in Bergen county. 
If your militia would now exert themselves in small 
scouting parties and fall on their detached canton- 
ments, or their line of march in retreat, they would 
be completely knocked up. Now is the time to 
exert every nerve,/ and if we do. General Howe's 
army will be ruined ; they will have no recruits in 
the spring, and the next campaign will be our 
own. God bless you: be active, and make the 
State of New-Jersey what it ought to be. 

- " Most affectionately yours, 

" Stirling." 

The writer of the above letter, William Alex- 
ander, better known by the title of Earl of Stirling, 
of whom mention has been more than once made 
in [this volume, the only son of James Alexander,* 
was born about the year 1726. 

In or about 1747, he married Sarah, daughter 
of Philip Livingston, second proprietor of the 
manor, and thus became aUied to the subject of 
this memoir. He commenced business as a mer- 
chant in New-York, and we have already seen that 
in the colonial politics he espoused that side 
which was maintained by his relatives of the Liv- 
ingston family. In 1755, Mr. Alexander was ap- 
pointed by General Shirley one of the army con- 
tractors. In the course of the next year, he totally 
relinquished his commercial business, and be- 

* For a notice of this eminent New- York lawyer, vid. chap, ii. 



214 THE LIFE OF 

came private secretary to the commander-in-chief. 
About the same time he was made surveyor-gen- 
eral of the Eastern division of New-Jersey, by the 
proprietors. The taste for mathematics, and the 
dexterity in their practical application, which he in- 
herited from his father, rendered this appointment 
peculiarly appropriate.* 

In September, 1756, Mr. Alexander accompa- 
nied Shirley to England, partly to vindicate the re- 
putation of the latter from the aspersions by which 
it had been assailed, and partly to assist in settling 
the army accounts, which had become very com- 
plicated. In connexion with these affairs, he 
was, in the spring of 1757, examined at the bar 
of the House of Commons.f While in England 
he was induced, as it is said, by the persuasions of 
Shirley to lay claim to the Scottish earldom of 
Stirling, of which he bore the family name, and 
which had been in abeyance since 1739. With 
the assistance of his counsel, Mr. Wedderburne, 
afterwards Lord Loughborough, Mr. Alexander 
succeeded so far as in 1759 to establish his direct 
descent from the titled family before a jury of ser- 
vice, as required by the Scottish law. Upon this, 
the final event of the application being deemed 
certain, some of his friends gave him the title in 

* A calculation of the transit of Venus, made by Lord Stir- 
ling in 1769, which is preserved in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Library, 
may be mentioned as a proof of his mathematical proficiency. 

1 1 have a curious MS. letter from Wm. Baker, an army con- 
tractor, to Christopher Kilby, relating to this examination. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 215 

their intercourse with him, and he incautiously 
adopted it. This, it seems, was done about the 
same time by several other claimants of peerages. 

The matter was yet, however, to undergo the 
final decision of the British House of Peers, as, if 
I rightly understand it, there were conflicting grants 
of the earldom. While the question was yet pend- 
ing, in October, 1761, Lord Stirling, as subsequently 
he was most commonly designated, left England 
for America with the intention of returning, which 
was, however, frustrated. An order was shortly 
afterwards made by the House of Lords, forbid- 
ding all claimants of peerages to use the titles to 
which they pretended, until their rights were es- 
tablished. With this order Lord Stirling did not 
comply, and his disobedience may have had its 
influence in the final decision, which was unfavour- 
able to him. The title was, notwithstanding, as 
we have said, given to him by courtesy through 
the remainder of his life. It may be here remarked, 
that up to this date,* the right to this earldom is 
still undetermined, a new claimant having recently 
assumed the title. 

Shortly after his return to America, Lord Stir- 
ling removed to Baskenridge, in the county of 
Somerset, in the colony of New-Jersey, where his 
father had owned extensive tracts of land; and 
being soon afterwards appointed a member of the 
king's council, he remained at this place until the 
revolution. His letters to the Lords Bute and 

* 1832 — as appears by an English newspaper. 



216 THE LIFE OF 

Shelburne, some of which remain, show an earnest 
desire to develop the resources of this colony. 
He made a map of the province, and endeavoured, 
so far as lay in his power, to foster its manufac- 
tures. In the year 1773, he actively exerted him- 
self in endeavouring to discover the agents in the 
robbery of the treasury, a circumstance already 
spoken of 

Lord Stirling seems to have taken no part in the 
revolutionary contest until after the battle of Lex- 
ington. In October, 1775, we find him colonel of 
the mihtia of the county of Somerset, which rank 
was subsequently confirmed by Congress,* and in 
December of the same year, he was suspended by 
Governor Franklin from his seat in Council. In 
January, 1776, he received the thanks of Congress 
for the capture of the ship The Blue Mountain Val- 
ley^ which, with the aid of several gentlemen volun- 
teers of Elizabethtown, he surprised and brought 
in a prize. 

In March following. Lord Stirling was appointed 
a brigadier-general in the continental service, and 
immediately went over to New-York, to assist in 
the defence of that city. During the war he saw 
as much personal service as almost any officer of 
his rank. In August, he was taken prisoner at the 
battle of Bushwick, on Long-Island.t Being soon 

* Journal 7th November, 1775. 

t At this battle the body which Lord Stirling commanded was 
immediately opposed by General Grant, spoken of in Reed's 
letter, (vid. sup. p. 203) who had, some years previous, offered 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 217 

after exchanged, he immediately resumed his com- 
mand, and had an important share in conducting 
the retreat through New-Jersey. He was, as we 
have seen, present at the battle of Trenton, and was 
also at that of Princeton. In February, 1777, he 
was made a major-general, and fought at Brandy- 
wine and Germantown in the course of the 
same year. In July, 1778, he was present at the 
battle of Monmouth, and received the thanks of 
Congress for his attack on Powles-hook in 1779. 
During the remainder of the war, Lord Stirling 
was attached to the northern branch of the army, 
and had not the good fortune to share in the hon- 
ors of the southern campaigns. It is not, how- 
ever, our province to sketch his military services. 
He died at Albany, while in the chief command of 
the northern department, on the 15th of January, 
1783. 

Lord Stirhng was highly esteemed as an officer 
and a man. His effi3rts to obtain the title induced 



in his place in Parliament, with five regiments "to drive the 
rebels into the sea." Immediately previous to the commence- 
ment of the action, Lord Stirling, who had known Grant in 
England, is said to have ridden in advance of his troops, and 
after courteously saluting the English commander, to have turned 
to his men, and reminding them of the arrogant threat, exhorted 
them to fulfil the menace upon the enemy. The anecdote may 
be true, though it savours a little of what in theatrical language 
is called "getting up;" while, perhaps, at the same time it 
illustrates as well as if it were more certain, marked and well- 
known traits in Lord Stirling's character. 

E E 



218 THE LIFE OF 

pecuniary sacrifices, and involved him in embar- 
rassments which cast a shade over the latter part of 
his life ; but however we may now smile or wonder 
at such costly efforts to obtain a barren peerage, 
we shall not forget the greater losses he risked, 
and the more perilous endeavours he made, to 
estabhsh a government which confers no higher 
title than that of American citizen. His courage 
was distinguished; even the scurrilous and abu- 
sive Cow-Chase (which no one can read without 
lessening his sympathy for the unfortunate Andre) 
gives him credit for the most entire bravery. 
Perhaps this short sketch of one of the most dis- 
tinguished officers of the revolution may be best 
closed by an extract from a letter of condolence, 
written by General Washington to Lady Stirling, 
immediately after her husband's death. It is dated 
Newburgh, 20th January, 1783, and ends thus: "It 
only remains then as a small, but just tribute, to 
the memory of my Lord Stirling, to express how 
deeply I share in the common affliction, on being 
deprived of the public and professional assistance, 
as well as the private friendship, of an officer of so 
high rank, with whom I had lived in the strictest 
habits of amity; and how much those mihtary 
merits of his lordship, which rendered him re- 
spected in his lifetime, are now regretted by the 
whole army."* 

* The original of this letter is now in the possession of a 
grandson of Lord Stirling. From the MSS. of the N. Y. Hist. 
Soc, which have furnished the materials of this meager sketch. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 219 

The victories of Trenton and Princeton, in- 
spiring, as they did, the people with the utmost 
confidence in their mihtary defenders, rendered 
the British position in New-Jersey untenable. 
Their troops retreated to the northern part of the 
State, and although they were not entirely with- 
drawn till some months later,* yet the most im- 
portant section fell back immediately into the 
hands of its rightful owners. As the State re- 
mained in nearly the same condition during the 
rest of the war, it may be proper here to give such 
a sketch of its situation as will serve to show the 
nature of the government, and the character re- 
quired rightly to discharge the duties attached 
to it. 

During the next six years, as we have said, New- 
Jersey was the frontier state, and exposed to all 
the miseries of a frontier warfare. At one time 
the enemy lay both upon her northern and southern 
boundaries, and her losses, in proportion to wealth 



might be framed a much more complete and interesting memoir 
of this officer ; his connexion with the colonial politics of New- 
Jersey, and the military history of the revolution, could not fail 
to render it interesting. 

* In June, when Howe failed in his endeavours to bring 
Washington into battle, he appears to have carried the main 
body of his troops over to New- York, but, perhaps, a small 
force remained in the State during the summer. On the 17th 
September, 1777, General Philemon Dickinson writes to Governor 
Livingston, " the enemy have crossed the North River, and totally 
evacuated Jersey." 



220 THE LIFE OF 

and population, were probably greater than those 
of any other State, with the exception of South 
Carolina. The office of its governor was diffi- 
cult and perplexing. The perpetual petitions for 
passes across the lines, involving a troublesome 
and invidious examination of the character of the 
applicant; tlie confficting claims of the State and 
the regular army upon prisoners; the constant 
alarms of invasion on the part of the British ; the 
urgent requests of the various counties for guards 
within their limits ; the maintenance of the out- 
posts and the beacons in a situation to anticipate 
these incursions ; the illegal and injurious traffic 
secretly carried on with the enemy ; the constant 
ravages of the refugee partisans; the bands of 
robbers infesting the mountainous and wilder parts 
of the State; the plunders committed under the 
sanction of the American name; the frequent 
quarrels between the militia officers, and the de- 
mands for courts-martial; the prayers of the 
prisoners in New-York for dehverance, and the 
loud calls for supplies on the part of both the 
State and continental troops, all by turns solicited 
and distracted Governor Livingston's attention.* 

• The following is a ludicrous specimen of the multitudinous 
applications with which Governor Livingston was annoyed. 

" Trenton May the 6—1783. 
"Sir May it plaease your Excelexencey to Look att the 
Destress of a solger that Has got the Child of another Man Born 
in this town and the Mother is Ded at Camp and the Child Maks 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 221 

That through this maze of various duties Living- 
ston successfully made his way, without abating 
the least of a rigid honesty, which sometimes 
necessarily assumed the appearance of severity, — 
that he faithfully fulfilled the duties of his station, 
and retained the affection and esteem of his fellow- 
citizens unchanged, — speaks no more highly for his 
merit than it does for their correct apprehension 
of the only characteristics which could have suited 
the time and circumstances. 

It must be remembered also that the office of 
arbitrator between small and conflicting interests ; 
of adjudicator of petty and vexatious claims, while 
peculiarly harassing, carries with it the least pos- 
sible reward of reputation. All the requisites 
essential to success in far greater and more im- 
portant transactions are demanded here. The 
weight of a reputation already established for 
rigid integrity, a nice perception of character, 
ability to command and equal ability to persuade, 
were all, perhaps, brought into play, to settle 
a question of precedence between two militia 
captains, whose dissensions might have left an 
important post unguarded. 

On the part of his subordinates, Livingston had 



Him usles to His Command as he does Not No what to Doo 
with it May it pleas your Honer to assist him to Make the 
overseers to take it from Him as he is a good solger and Has 
No ways to suporte the poor Enfent. 

"Patrick Murrey." 



222 THE LIFE OF 

to contend with dishonesty and wilful mismanage- 
ment, no less than with inattention and criminal 
good-nature. " Our patriotism," he says, a few 
years later,* " is as much depreciated as our cur- 
rency :" and we meet repeatedly bitter complaints 
of misconduct of every kind, wrung from him by 
transactions which he daily saw taking place on 
all sides of him, but which he had no power to 
prevent. " It has been an affliction to me," he 
writes, on the 23d of January, 1782, to the Rev. 
Azel Roe, " that the exchange of our citizens in 
captivity with the enemy, and the supplying them 
with necessaries at the expense of the State, has 
not been more attended to ; but this not being in 
the department of the executive, I can only repre- 
sent, recommend, solicit, reiterate, and grumble." 
At the same time he construed the power con- 
ferred upon him with the utmost closeness, and 
never allowed himself to overstep its boundaries, 
however tempting the immediate good which lay 
in his reach. In January, 1778, writing to Lau- 
rens, he says, " Between the boundless avarice of 
many of our farmers, and the villany of many of 
the gentry employed in public business, we are re- 
duced to the most melancholy situation, from 
which I foresee nothing short of the most vigorous 
efforts can extricate us ; but as for measures un- 
warranted by law, by civil officers, whose business 
it is to enforce them — -fiat jnstitia et j)ereat munclus,''' 

* MS. letter to President Huntington, 29th of Oct. 1779. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 223 

The unmilitary conduct of the British troops, and 
their brutal treatment of the inhabitants in their 
march through New-Jersey, is fully and eloquently 
described in a message sent by Governor Living- 
ston to the Assembly at Haddonfield, on the 28th 
of February, but as it has been recently repub- 
lished,* no extract from it is necessary in this 
place. It may be here mentioned that the enemy 
wantonly injured Governor Livingston's house at 
Elizabethtown, and made several unsuccessful at- 
tempts to set it on fire. The officer in command, 
in the same spirit, gave the inhabitants leave to 
cut wood from his grounds, but only one person 
was found willing to avail himself of the permis- 
sion.t 

We have arrived at the moment when the tide 
of success began to turn, and when a strenuous 
effort was made by the leading men of the State 
to secure the integrity of New-Jersey, and by de- 
veloping to the utmost her physical and moral re- 
sources, to make her a barrier against the advance 
of the enemy, instead of a trophy of their success. 
The subject of the militia early attracted their at- 
tention. The ordinances of the convention regu- 
lating it had proved inefficient, and among the first 
matters urged by the governor upon the Legisla- 
ture, on their assembhng (24th of January, 1777), 
was the passage of such a law as should make it 



* In Mr. Williston's Eloquence of the United States, 
t MS. letter to Governor Livingston, 12th Jan. 



224 THE LIFE OF 

every man's interest* to be in the field, while it 
should not disgust the people by unnecessary se- 
verity. On the same day I find Washington 
writing to Governor Livingston as follows. 

" Head-Quarters, Morristown, | 
24th Jan. 1777. \ 

*• Sir, 

" The irregular and disjointed state of the mili- 
tia of this province makes it necessary for me to 
inform you, that unless a law is passed by your 
Legislature to reduce them to some order, and 
oblige them to turn out in a diflferent manner fi-om 
what they have hitherto done, we shall bring very 
few into the field, and even those few will do little 
or no service. 

" Their officers are generally of the lowest 
class of people, and instead of setting a good ex- 
ample to their men, are leading them into every 
kind of mischief, one species of which is plun- 
dering the inhabitants, under pretence of their 
being tories. A law should, in my opinion, be 
passed to put a stop to this kind of lawless rapine, 
for unless there is something done to prevent it, 
the people will throw themselves of choice into 
the hands of the British troops. 

" But your first object should be a well regulated 
militia law. The people, put under good officers, 
would behave in quite another manner, and not 
only render real service as soldiers, but would pro- 
tect instead of distressing the inhabitants. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. . 225 

« What I would wish to have particularly in- 
sisted upon in the new law, should be, that every 
man capable of bearing arms should be obliged to 
turn out, and not buy off their service by a trifling 
sum. We want men, and not money. 

" 1 have the honour to be, 
" With the greatest respect. Sir, 

" Your most obedient humble servant, 
(Signed) . " Go. Washington." 

Governor Livingston's message shows that he 
fully coincided in the sentiments expressed in this 
letter ; but experience alone was destined to con- 
vince the people of New-Jersey of the necessity of 
energetic and even rigorous measures. Peculiar 
views of poHcy also concurred to recommend the 
course of the Legislature ; their constituents had 
just emancipated themselves from a government 
charged with oppression and exaction; the new 
system was a problem fully comprehended by 
none; the respect and affection of its subjects 
were to be secured by wisdom and moderation. 
These considerations rendered it highly desirable 
that the appearance of severity, even if necessary, 
should be very gradually assumed, and that the 
leaders should sedulously seek rather to obey the 
voice of the people than to compel them. 

The Quakers had from the commencement of 
the contest shown great reluctance to enrol them- 
selves in the militia, to the payment of pecuniary 
compositions in lieu of service, and indeed to 

F F 



226 THE LIFE OF 

every measure which 'tended to interfere with their 
pecuHar tenets. General Putnam, at this time 
stationed at Princeton, irritated by the numbers 
who held aloof from the standard, issued peremp- 
tory orders to apprehend all dehnquents, and to 
exact personal service, or levy proportionate fines. 
This measure, unwarranted as it seems by the or- 
dinances of the convention, and repugnant to the 
constitution, which guarantied the most entire 
toleration of principle and practice, fell immedi- 
ately under the notice of the governor. 

He entirely disapproved of it, perceiving that 
injurious as was the conduct of the Quakers, this 
course could only tend to disgust the moderate 
men of either side, without bringing into the field 
any valuable recruits. He therefore wrote to Put- 
nam, urging him to desist until the opinion of the 
commander-in-chief could be procured. The old 
soldier acquiesced, but does not appear to have 
understood or rehshed the forbearance. His let- 
ter is so characteristic that 1 have inserted it at 
length. 

"Princeton, 18th February, 1777, 
" Dear Sir, 
" I received your favour of the 13th instant by 
Major Livingston, and should have answered it 
sooner but was prevented by variety of business. 

" 1 would by no means be thought an advocate 
for pecuniary compositions in lieu of the actual 
service of the militia ; at a time like this, no sum 
can be really equivalent. I detest the practice 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 227 

of admitting it, and (as members of society) the 
sect for which it was introduced. The distribu- 
tion of these sums among the soldiery I consider 
as an additional grievance, and sincerely wish they 
were both exploded. By the former part of your 
letter, ' It was my purpose to have all our militia 
join the army :' by this 1 would have thought the 
Quakers were not excluded — but the remark in 
your postscript, that the Quakers cannot be com- 
pelled to fight without violating those conscientious 
scruples, &c., gives me to doubt whether money 
may be deemed satisfactory, or these drones of 
society permitted to remain unmolested. 

" If compositions are allowed, Col. Cripps (or 
some other person) must execute his orders. If 
nothing is required, tender consciences will multiply 
to an alarming degree, and backwardness indeed 
take place. The Burlington militia were reluctant 
chiefly on this account — and finally brought their 
Quakers before me ; if I had detained them their 
month, it must have been by keeping them con- 
stantly under guard, but this would have been 
gratifying spleen to very little purpose. I did not 
ask them to fight, and they did not choose to fa- 
tigue, but were willing to submit to the fine im- 
posed by the State ; they did so and were dismissed. 

" The Salem militia were in like manner uneasy 
that the consciences of any should not only tie 
their hands, but screen their purses: that this 
might not be entirely the case, I gave Col. Cripps 
his orders. Far be it from me to pretend to coun- 
teract any decree of the State, however absurd. I 



228 THE LIFE OP 

Stopped the fines which were levied, only till 1 
could be satisfied of the pleasure of the Legis- 
lature. I knew the mihtia bill was before them, 
doubted not this matter would be included, 
and thought probably a resolution (disposing of 
these compositions, if any were allowed to better 
purposes) might be made previous to their being 
collected, or becoming the property of the soldiers. 
My sole view in Col. Cripps's orders was, in short, 
to quiet the militia, and assist the service in a way 
consonant to law. 1 beg to submit entirely to 
your wisdom to pursue such measures as will most 
conduce to these valuable purposes. I wish, how- 
ever, to be informed if the law allowing pecuniary 
compositions be still in force ; and if it be, whether 
all are not equally entitled to choose the penalty or 
duty, or whether a part are entirely excused. 

" You are doubtless before this acquainted that 
Major Dick* Stockton and his party are taken — the 
prisoners were sixty-one, including officers. The 
enemy had four Icilled and one wounded, supposed 
mortally ; we lost one man. Among other articles, 
sixty-three excellent muskets were brought oflf — 
those are now in the hands of your militia, and if 
Gen. Washington will permit, 1 would advise that 
they be purchased by the State for their use. 
" I am, sir, 
" Your most obedient servant, 

(Signed) "Israel Putnam." 

• One of the numerous family of that name, from his treach- 
ery called " Double Dick." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 229 

Washington coincided fully with Governor Liv- 
ingston, and laid his commands upon Putnam ac- 
cordingly. Writing under date of the 22d Febru- 
ary, he says, " Your sentiments on the subject of 
General Putnam's letter to you so exactly coin- 
cide with mine, and your reasoning is so perfectly 
just and full, that without any observations in addi- 
tion, 1 have directed the general immediately to 
put a stop to the practice of extorting fines from 
the reluctant militia, and ordered him to take no 
steps not strictly consonant with the laws of this 
State." 

Shortly after this I again find Washington writ- 
ing as follows on the subject of the militia law. 

" Head-Quarters, Morristown, ) 
8th March, 1777. ) 

« Sir, 
" I this moment had the honour to receive your 
two favours of the 3d inst. * * * How can an as- 
sembly of gentlemen, eyewitnesses to the distresses 
and inconveniences that have their principal source 
in the want of a well-regulated militia, hesitate to 
adopt the only remedy that can remove them! 
And stranger still, think of a law that must neces- 
sarily add to the accumulated load of confusion. 
For Heaven's sake entreat them to lay aside their 
present opinions, and waiving every other consid- 
eration, let the public good be singularly attended 
to. The ease they design their constituents by 
composition must be delusive. Every injurious 



230 THE LIFE OF 

distinction between tile rich and poor ought to be 
laid aside now. The enemy cannot remain much 
longer in their present situation. Their peace for 
some days past indicates preparations to move. 
When they do, your Assembly may perhaps wish that 
their militia were in the field. I have endeavoured 
to cut off the communication between Bergen and 
New-York, having received intelligence of it a few 
days ago. 

" I have the honour to be, 

" Your most obedient serv't, 
(Signed) "Go. Washington." 

At length on the 15th of March, the long-ex- 
pected act was passed. It was, as had been feared, 
defective in admitting pecuniary composition in 
lieu of service, and excited much regret and dis- 
satisfaction in the minds both of Washington and 
Livingston. On the 5th of April, the latter writes to 
the former, " The act is extremely deficient, and 
it has cost me many an anxious hour to think how 
long it was procrastinated, and how ineffectual 1 
had reason to apprehend it would finally prove. 
My only consolation is, that my messages upon 
their minutes will show my sense of the matter, 
and that I was not remiss in the strongest recom- 
mendations to construct it in such a manner as 
would have effectually answered the purposes 
intended." 

This dilatory and inefficient proceeding is one 
of many instances to prove that a want of energy 



WILLIAM HVIiNGSTOiN. 231 

is the great practical (almost the only theoret- 
ical) defect in governments radically democratic ; 
and yet this tenderness exhibited by the delegate 
towards his constituents, this unwilhngness to 
enact harsh though necessary laws, is so inwrought 
into all our institutions, and so inevitably follows 
from a full and accurate representation, that it is 
idle to regret it. Few would wish it altered, in 
order to accommodate the government to those 
rare emergencies when one more powerful is re- 
quired. 

At this same time, the Legislature, at the 
recommendation of the Executive, passed another 
act of a more energetic character, vesting in the 
governor and twelve members, to be denominated 
a Council of Safety, certain powers, enabling them 
to act against the common enemy with greater 
efficiency during the recess of the Assembly. This 
act, the duration of which was limited to six 
months, was highly approved by the zealous 
whigs ; but the summary powers it bestowed upon 
the Executive soon proved unacceptable to the 
people at large. In June, 1780, Governor Living- 
ston writes, " The tories are grown so impudent, 
that nothing but another Council of Safety will 
reduce them to order." 

It may be here mentioned that on the 26th of 
March in this year, commissioners from six States, 
one of which was New-Jersey, met at York Town, 
in Pennsylvania, for the purpose of regulating the 
price of labour, manufactures, and internal produce. 



232 THE LIFE OF 

In this scheme, — one of the many pohtical nos- 
trums, the futiUty of which an adequate knowledge 
of the great science of economy would have ex- 
posed, and the hneal descendant of which, in our own 
day, has but just received its death-blow, — Living- 
ston placed some conjfidence. Governor Trum- 
bull of Connecticut I find, a few years later, perhaps 
enlightened by experience, expressing a more 
accurate opinion.* 

There was at this period no newspaper pub- 
lished in New-Jersey,t but Governor Livingston 
had already begun in the periodicals to make his 
pen subservient to that cause in which he was 
now completely engrossed. In February, 1777, 
he published in Dunlap's paper, then printed at 
Philadelphia, an essay entitled, "The Impartial 
Chronicle;" satirizing the lying Gazette, edited 
by Rivington at New- York. This was afterwards 
repubUshed in Mr. Carey's American Museum. 
It is the highest and holiest prerogative of htera- 
ture to identify itself with, and to assist in the 
propagation of those principles which are making 
their way over every obstacle, and which are daily 
enrolling new adherents under their standard. 

In an elaborate message of the 28th May, Gov- 

* MS. letter to Gov. Livingston. 

t At least so far as I can learn. The date of the establish- 
ment of the New-Jersey Journal, published at Chatham, by 
KoUock, I do not know, nor- have I seen its files. It was not, 
however, the State gazette, and it does not appear that its 
editor had any connexion with Governor Livingston. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON 233 

ernor Livingston commenced the determined hos- 
tility to that portion of the citizens of his State 
who had embraced the EngUsh cause, which, al- 
though it provoked their bitterest hostiUty, and 
subjected him to great personal inconvenience 
and danger, he perseveringly maintained through- 
out the war. On the 5th of June, the Legislature, 
in compliance with his recommendations, passed an 
act confiscating all the personal estates of the 
refugees within the British lines, giving them a 
certain period of grace, in which, without loss of 
property, they might renew their allegiance to 
the State of New-Jersey. 

Upon the rising of the Legislature, on the 7th 
of June, Governor Livingston returned, to the 
northern part of the State, in the neighbourhood 
of his family, and there remained, the greater 
part of the time at Morristown, during the sum- 
mer; moving about from place to place, as the 
sittings of the Council of Safety, and the various 
claims of his office required. 

The. following letter to him from his son, at this 
time attached to the northern army, may prove not 
unacceptable to at least a portion of my readers. 

" Tyconderoga, July 3d, 1777. 

" Dear Sir, 

" I wrote you on the 30th ult., advising you of 

the approach of the enemy. On the 1st instant, 

the second division of their army arrived in forty 

batteaux, about 20 men in each, and landed on the 

G G 



234 THE LIFE OF 

eastern shore of the-lake, opposite the three-mile 
point. Yesterday they received a third reinforce- 
ment in sixty batteaux. They have done httle yet 
of any consequence, but continue playing their old 
game with the savages. Yesterday in the after- 
noon a party of these, with some Canadians and a 
few regulars, in the whole about 250, under the 
command of Capt. Frazier of the 47th, attacked 
our picquet guard of 50 men, and drove them in, 
then advanced, and for a short time kept up a 
scattering fire on the French lines. Our troops 
behaved with great coolness and resolution, and 
after a few shot, made them retire to the woods. 
The loss the enemy sustained in this little brush is 
uncertain. We had one lieutenant and five pri- 
vates killed, and a lieutenant and seven men 
wounded. These little skirmishes are of infinite 
service to our troops, who are in general raw and 
undisciplined. They serve as preparations to an 
action of the last importance, which we have 
reason hourly to expect. 

" Two Hessians have deserted to us, both very 
intelligent fellows — they agree that Burgoyne com- 
mands the army, and under him, General Riedesel, 
the German forces. Carleton has staid behind as 
governor of Quebec, and general of the troops in 
Canada. They have brought all the Hessians 
with them, in the whole seven regiments and one 
battalion, besides four companies of dragoons — 
their regiments consist in general of six hundred 
men. Their dragoons arc not mounted, but come 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 235 

in expectation of getting horses at this place. 
Their supply of provisions is very short, from 
which it appears they mean a coup-de-main and 
not a siege. 

" We are daily receiving additions to our 
strength. Col. Warner is expected to-day with 
600 Green-Mountain boys. We all hourly look for 
General Schuyler with a large body of militia from 
below. The spirits of our men were much raised 
yesterday with an account of a signal victory 
gained by General Washington over the enemy. 
We fired thirteen guns as a feu-de-joie on the occa- 
sion, just as we perceived a reinforcement of the 
enemy coming up. To-morrow we shall give them 
a salute of the same kind, being the anniversary 
of the ever memorable, the .4th of July, 1776, on 
which day we broke off all connexion with slavery, 
and became the free and independent States of 
America. 

" In a letter of the 26th ult., I told you of my 
being a patient in the general hospital. I have 
now the pleasure to inform you, my complaint is 
removed and my health perfectly restored. In the 
absence of General Schuyler, I have the honour of 
acting as aid-de-camp to General St. Clair. You 
know his abilities too well to be informed of them 
by me. He is cool and determined, ever vigilant, 
and unruffled by every appearance of danger. 

" I flatter myself with the hopes of announcing 
to you in a few days the welcome news of the 
total defeat of the enemy. 



236 THE LIFE OF 

" I am, dear sir, with every sentiment of esteem 
and affection, 

" Yours sincerely, 

" H. B. Livingston." 

The writer of the above letter, Henry Brock- 
hoist, so named after his maternal uncle, the fifth 
son, and ninth child of Governor Livingston, was 
born at New-York, on the 26th of November, 1757, 
and graduated at Princeton College in 1 774. 

Upon the breaking out of the war in the middle 
colonies in 1776, and early in the summer of that 
year, before he had reached the age of twenty, 
young Livingston entered the army with the grade 
of captain, and being selected by General Schuyler 
as one of his aids, he attached himself to the 
northern department with the rank of major. Dur- 
ing this year and the next, he was busily occupied in 
the duties of his station. Upon Schuyler's depar- 
ture he became aid to General St. Clair, and was 
present at the siege of Ticonderoga. On the 30th 
June, writing to his father, he says, " I cannot but 
deem myself very fortunate that sickness prevented 
my return to Albany with General Schuyler, as it 
has given me an opportunity of being present at a 
battle in which I promise myself the pleasure of 
seeing our arms flushed with victory." 

These sanguine expectations were disappointed, 
and he shared in the reverses of his commander. 
Subsequent to this period, as aid-de-camp of 
General Schuyler, he devoted much of his time 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 237 

and attention to the interests of this officer, which 
were at this time in an inauspicious condition. On 
the 14th of September, 1777, he writes from Still- 
water as follows : " We shall not decamp for 
Philadelphia as soon as I expected. General 
Schuyler is at Albany preparing for trial. As he 
had not much business for me at that place, 1 
obtained his permission to visit this army, and 
Gen. Arnold having given me an invitation to 
spend a few weeks in his family, I did myself the 
pleasure to join him on the 9th instant. Though 
my duty did not require my presence in camp, my 
general being at Albany, yet 1 scorned to take 
advantage of that privilege at a time when a battle 
is hourly expected, and joined the army in the 
character of a volunteer. This is not the first 
time I have offered my services, trifling as they 
are, in that capacity. My stay at Ticonderoga 
was entirely voluntary, as Gen. Schuyler was 
absent. . Skenesborough, Fort Anne, and other 
places can witness the same. I never screened 
myself under the cloak of duty. 1 mention not 
this by way of boasting, but only to convince you 
I have been neglected. Gen. Schuyler's recom- 
mendations in my favour have been repeatedly 
neglected. I am happy that I shall soon have an 
opportunity of leaving', the army with honour to 
myself and family, it being my fixed determination, 
the moment my general resigns, to leave a service 
where promotion goes by favour, and not by merit." 
While he was thus attached to the northern 



238 THE LIFE OF 

army, he shared in- the action of the 19th of 
September, and shortly afterwards retm'ned to 
his station, in attendance on General Schuyler. 
About this time he was promoted to a lieutenant- 
colonelcy.* After a short time spent at Philadel- 
phia, Lieutenant-colonel Livingston was chosen 
by his brother-in-law, Mr. Jay, then about to sail 
as minister to Spain, to accompany him as his 
private secretary. In October, 1779, he received 
from Congress a furlough for twelve months, and 
they left the country together, in the frigate Con- 
federacy immediately afterwards. Many of Mr. 
Livingston's letters written from Spain are still pre- 
served, and they afford full proof of the character- 
istic activity of his mind. In the early part of 
1782, he relinquished his connexion with the em- 
bassy and sailed for America. 

He was captured on his voyage by a British 
vessel, and carried to New-York, where he was 
thrown into prison by the officer then in chief 
command. Immediately upon the arrival of Sir 
Guy Carleton, in May, he was liberated, as we shall 
hereafter see. Very shortly after this he went to 
Albany, to pursue the study of the law with Mr. 
Peter Yates, and not long after the evacuation of 
the city of New- York by the British, in November, 

• Henry Beekman Livingston, who reached the rank of colonel, 
and resigned his commission in January, 1774), served from the 
year 1775, and the similarity of his initials with those of Gover- 
nor Livingston's son creates some difficulty in tracing their 
respective courses. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 239 

1783, Mr. Livingston commenced the practice of 
his profession in that place. He was almost 
immediately successful, and rapidly laid the foun- 
dation of his subsequent fame and fortune. About 
this period he dropped the use of his first Christian 
name, and is therefore almost exclusively known 
by his middle name of Brockholst. 

In January, 1802, he took his seat as puisne 
judge on the bench of the Supreme Court of this 
State. In 1807 he was appointed associate justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the 
place of William Patterson, deceased. This sta- 
tion Judge Livingston retained till his death, which 
took place on the 18th March, 1823, while he was 
attending at Washington in his judicial capacity. 
The following extracts from an outline of his 
character, published shortly after his death by a 
member of the New-York bar, will convey the best 
idea of this marked and influential man.* This 
outline was written by one in no way connected 
with Judge Livingston, — one who is now himself 
beyond the reach of blame or praise, and of whom 
it is but little to say, that his pure, elevated, and 
comprehensive mind could never have stooped to 
the admiration of any thing low or commonplace. 
" Mature in years and ripe in fame and honors, 
Brockholst Livingston having discharged his obli- 
gations to society, has paid his debt to nature. 
As a judge, his character was very pecuhar and 

* Vid. N. Y. Evening Post for 24th March, 1823. 



240 THE LIFE OF 

strongly marked, fie was eminently a man of 
genius, of strong, vivid, and rapid perceptions; 
and the frankness of his character always prompted 
the immediate expression of his convictions. Such 
a disposition must of course, and not unfrequently, 
induce mistakes. But here intervened a redeem- 
ing principle, resulting from one of the most pecu- 
liar characteristics of his happily composed na- 
ture. He seemed to be without vanity. He did not 
listen, or affect to listen, to arguments in opposi- 
tion to his declared opinions merely from official 
decorum ; but his mind was literally and truly open 
to conviction. Others may have committed fewer 
errors, but who has left fewer unrepaired ? The 
kindness and suavity of his character were strongly 
displayed in the discharge of his official duties. 
At every moment of his life he was an amiable 
and finished gentleman. 

" To say that he was just and impartial, would 
be low and inadequate praise. He was prompt, 
laborious, and indefatigable. His own ease and 
pleasure always gave way at the call of duty. In 
his intellectual habits he was cautious, but not 
timid. He looked rather to practical results than 
to abstract principles. Nevertheless, his feehngs 
and opinions were decidedly of a liberal cast. 

" Judge Livingston was eminently gifted with a 
fine pubhc and social spirit. This temper was 
displayed in his zealous promotion of all liberal 
pursuits and institutions. He was a generous 
patron of literature, and the same spirit diffused 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 241 

itself through his whole character. It will be 
gratifying to all the friends of Christianity that the 
luminous mind of Judge Livingston assented to 
its evidence, and that he made a public profession 
of his faith. 

" Any sketch of the character of Judge Living- 
ston which did not mention his domestic qualities 
would be unpardonably imperfect. In all the rela- 
tions of domestic life — and it is there that a man's 
true character is best knovm and its influence felt 
— he was far above the reach of commonplace 
considerations. He was ever most affectionate, 
attentive, and considerate, exacting little for him- 
self, and always consulting the interest and feeling 
of his family. The main object of his life, at 
least that which seemed to interest him most, was 
to transfuse his own knowledge and character into 
the mind of his children. Every hour that could 
be spared from his public duties, and more than 
could well be spared from the time necessary for 
his relaxation, and the care of his health, was de- 
voted to their education. If his example and pre- 
cepts have their just influence, they will in some 
good degree continue to them his presence and 
supply his loss." 

In July of this year, Burgoyne advancing at the 
head of his army towards Albany, promulgated 
his famous manifesto, conceived in terms of arro- 
gance and menace, ill calculated to affect the peo- 
ple whom he intended to terrify. In ridicule of it, 
and to counteract whatever ill tendency it might 

HH 



242 THE LIFE OF 

have, Governor Livingston published a parody, the 
broad humour and sturdy v^^higgism of which was 
much applauded at the time. 

The first notice of an attempt upon Governor 
Livingston's life or person, except the one men- 
tioned by Galloway* in 1776, which I have found, 
is in a letter from Ehsha Boudinot of the 27th July, 
1777. The house in which his family were residing 
at Percepany was surrounded in the night by a 
party of refugees, who thought it safest to wait till 
daylight to secure their prey ; but tradition says, 
that his habits of early rising saved him from be- 
coming a prisoner. His enemies overslept them- 
selves; and when the sun roused them. Governor 
Livingston, unconscious of his danger, was upon 
his way to a neighbouring village. 

On the 25th of June, 1778, Governor Livingston 
writing to Henry Laurens, speaks of having been 
annoyed by these rumors of plots for three months 
previous, and says, " they certainly overrate my 
merit, and 1 cannot conceive what induces them to 
bid so extravagant a sum, having now raised my 
price from 500 to 2000 guineas, unless it be that 
Gen. Skinnert intends to pay his master's debts as 
he has long been used to pay his own." 

These reports, sometimes of attempts upon his 
liberty, sometimes upon his life, coupled as they 
were with the well-knoAvn rancor of the refugees, 

* Vid. Galloway's Tracts. 

t The coniiiiander of a refugee tiorps. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 243 

the imprisonment of Richard Stockton, and of 
John Fell,* a member of the Council, both carried 
off and thrown into close confinement in New- 
York, during this year, harassed him, made his 
residence, except when in the vicinity of the army, 
dangerous, and subjected him to constant and 
great inconvenience. All his vigilance was neces- 
sary, and he more than once escaped but narrowly 
from his pursuers. 

Early in September, Governor Livingston met 
the Assembly at Haddonfield, and in a speech de- 
livered on the 3d of September, he again urged 
upon them the defects of the militia law, and a 
sedulous attention to those measures which the 
difficult situation of the government demanded. 
This address, which breathes throughout his deter- 
mined attachment to the American cause, thus 
closes, " May you still continue in whatever station 
it shall please Providence to place you, to exert 
your endeavours for the prosperity of a free and 
independent people, and during the whole course 
of the conflict may our creed be victory, and our 

motto PERSEVERE." 

The following letter from General Dickinson, of 
the State troops, will show the continual alarms 
which harassed New-Jersey. The menaces of 
the enemy were often enough fulfilled to justify 
constant wariness and apprehension. 

* Message of Governor Livingston to the Assembly, 9th May, 
1777, and Journal of Congress, 1777, page 3. 



244 THE LIFE OF 



" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

" Trenton, 16th September, 1777. 
" Sir, 

" A gentleman this moment arrived from Morris- 
tovm informs me, that it was expected the enemy 
would be in possession of the town very soon — 
that meeting with little opposition from the country, 
they had divided their forces into three divisions, 
and intended to ravage the country — under these 
circumstances, agreeable* to the inclination of the 
officers belonging to Col. Philip's battalion (the 
only one here), I have ordered him to the eastward. 
'Tis said confidently that the enemy are 4,000 
strong in this State. The apprehensions of the 
inhabitants are great. * * * 

" 1 beg an answer to this letter with the utmost 
despatch, that 1 may know what orders to leave for 
those troops that assemble at this place. * * * 
I must inform your Excellency all the Continental 
stores from Philadelphia are sent to this place ; 
this the enemy will soon receive intelhgence of 
from their friends. When Philip's battalion par- 
aded yesterday evening, not a single man from the 
Trenton company appeared. His battalion con- 
sists of about 200 men. Col. Reed told me his 
would not exceed TOO men. 

" 1 wish the Council were not so distant at this 
critical time. We now feel in the most sensible 
manner the defects of our mihtia law ; not a mo- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 2 1/5 

ment should be lost in forming a new one that will 
compel the men to turn out. 

" Your Excellency mentioned the green coats 
from Staten Island ; there are three or four times 
their number of red ones, 'tis said. 
" 1 am, in haste, 

" Your Excellency's most obed't., 

" Philemon Dickinson." 

The British forces were already on their way to 
Philadelphia, and on the 26th of September, Sir 
WilHam Howe entered that city. New-Jersey was 
thus for the next nine months completely encom- 
passed by the enemy, and suffered during that time 
no less on her southern than northern frontier. 

So valuable had been the services of Livingston 
during the critical year now drawing to a close, 
and so highly were they appreciated by his fellow- 
citizens, that in November he was re-elected 
governor by the Legislature, without a dissenting 
voice. The following extract of a letter from him 
to General Washington, dated the 21st of Novem- 
ber, will give some idea of the urgent necessity 
then requiring the exertion of all the honesty 
and energy of the State : — " This evil" (the trade 
with the enemy), " instead of being checked, has 
grown to so enormous a height, that the enemy, 
as I am informed, is plentifully supplied with fresh 
provisions, and such a quantity of British manu- 
factures brought back in exchange, as to enable 
the persons concerned to set up shops to retail 



246 



THE LIFE OF 



them. The people ^re outrageous, and many of 
our officers threaten to resign their commis- 
sions/' 

This passage refers principally to the village of 
Elizabethtown, and writing at a much later period 
(19th Feb. 1784) to Dr. John Beatty, representa- 
tive in Congress, Governor Livingston thus speaks 
of the effect this corrupting and demoralizing 
traffic had produced upon that place : " Solitary 
indeed is Queen Elizabeth's namesake to me at 
present, when instead of my quondam agreeable 
companions, the village now principally consists 
of unknown, unrecommended strangers, guilty 
looking tories, and very knavish whigs." 

The following extract of a letter from one of 
Governor Livingston's daughters, dated 29th Nov. 
1777, gives some idea of the practical sacrifices 

made by the leading whigs : — " K has been 

at Eliz. Town ; fomid our house in a most ruin- 
ous situation; Gen. Dickinson had stationed a 
captain with his artillery company in it, and after 

that it was kept for a bullock's guard. K 

waited on the general, and he ordered the troops 
removed the next day, but then the mischief was 
done ; every thing is carried off that mamma had 
collected for her accommodation, so that it is 
impossible for her to go down to have the grapes 
and other things secured ; the very hinges, locks, 
and panes of glass, are taken away." 

The Royal Gazette, published by James Riving- 
ton, a printer and bookseller in New- York before 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 247 

the war, and whose estabhshment was broken up 
by a sort of revolutionary movement in November, 
1775,* was recommenced by him at the same 
place in October 1777. During the remainder of 
the contest, it was the leading organ of the British 
interest, and its pages are now a valuable record 
of the height to which political and personal 
rancor was then carried. Against Livingston, the 
malice of this printer and his correspondents was, 
in an especial manner, directed. " Spurious Go- 
vernor" — "Mock Governor" — "Don Quixote of 
the Jersies" — " Itinerant Dey of New-Jersey" — 
" Despot-in-Chief in and over the rising State 
of New-Jersey, Extraordinary Chancellor of the 
same" — " Knight of the most honourable Order of 
Starvation, and Chief of the Independents" — such 
are some of the epithets by which he is most ordi- 
narily designated, and the most infamous charges 
against both his private and public life are con- 
tained in its columns. "If Rivington is taken," 
writes Governor Livingston, about the year 1780, 
" I must have one of his ears ; Governor Clinton 
is entitled to the other ; and General Washington, 
if he pleases, may take' his head." 

To counteract the effects of this journal, Isaac 
Collins, whom Rivington with a sneer calls 
" Mr. William Livingston's printer," a quaker, and 
employed successively by the colony and the 
State, commenced the New-Jersey Gazette at 

* Sparks' Morris. Vol. i. p. 66. 



248 THE LIFE OF 

Burlington, on the 5th of December. This paper 
was subsequently published at Trenton, and again 
removed to Burlington, and throughout the war 
was the leading vehicle of information to the 
whigs. Governor Livingston immediately gave it 
his countenance and aid, and contributed to it 
for a long time under the signature of Hortent lus. 
These essays, of which a list is given below, were 
at the time of great value.* They contributed to 

* The following list of Governor Livingston's contributions to 
the N. J. Gazette, with the dates of the papers in which they 
are to be found, is inserted for the sake of more convenient 
reference. 

N. J. Gazette of 17th Dec, 1777. — On the exchange of Bur- 
goyne. Hortentius. 

24th Dec. — On the Conquest of America. Do. 

7th Jan. 1778. — A Satire on Sir William Howe. Do. 

21st Jan. — To his Majesty of Great Britain. Do. 

28lh Jan. — Answer to Mr. Galloway. Do. 

11th Feb. — Annotations upon his most gracious Majesty's, of 
most gracious Great Britain, most gracious Speech. Hortentius. 

18th March. — Remarks on Tryon's Answer to General Par- 
son's Letter, and Ex. from Private Letter of Hortentius. 

1st April. — Address to his Excellency General Washington, 
(in blank verse, 105 Lines.) , Hortentius. 

6th May. — On Lord North's Speech. Do. 

9th Sept. — On Reunion with Great Britain. Do. 

21st Sept. — On the British Commissioners. Do. 

25th October, 1780. — No. L On the Depreciation of the 
Currency. Scipio. 

1st Nov. — No. n. Same subject. Do. 

25th April, 1781.— No. HL Do. Do. 

24th Feb. 1784.— On Mr. Sam. Tucker's Delinquency. Do. 

2d March. — On Bankrupt Laws. Do. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 249 

infuse into the Americans a just idea of their own 
strength, and to create the conviction, that any 
ultimate success on the part of Great Britain was 
impossible. Combining eloquent appeals to the 
patriotism of the colonists, with the most scoffing 
ridicule of the menaces and denunciations of the 
British, they by turns enlisted every feeling which 
can arm the breasts of individuals or nations 
against vacillation and fear. These essays were 
discontinued at one period, owing to a coolness 
which arose between the editor and Governor 
Livingston ; probably to be ascribed to the inser- 
tion in the Gazette of the 27th of October, 1779, 
of a violent attack upon the latter, signed Cincin- 



16th March. — On Taxing Bachelors. Scipio. 

23d March. — On Restricting the Number of Taverns. ^ Do. 
30th March. — On the Liberty of the Press, and on a certain 
nonsensical Advertisement against Scipio. Scipio. 

13th April. — Same subject, part II. Do. 

20th April.— Part III. Do. 

26th April.— Part IV. Do. 

3d May.— Part V. Do. 

24th May. — On Payment of Taxes. Do. 

14th June. — On the Independence of the Judiciary. Do. 

23d August. — Reply to Tucker's Defence. Do. 

dth Jan. 1786. — Primitive Whig, No. I. 
16th Jan.— No. II. 
23d Jan.— No. III. 
30th Jan.— No. IV. 
6th Feb.— No. V. 
13th Feb.— No. VI. 

12th June. — On Deism. Hortentius. 

I I 



250 THE LIFE OF 

natus. They were, however, afterwards recon- 
ciled, and at a later period we shall find Livingston 
again lending the paper his efficient support. 

I have thus completed the narrative of the two 
opening years of the war. It would have been 
easy to have swelled this portion of my volume 
with correspondence from the leading men of the 
day. Perhaps, in this respect, 1 have already 
stepped over the legitimate hmits of biography. 
If 1 have yielded too far to the temptation, it has 
been with the desire of presenting a more perfect 
idea of the services of the subject of this memoir. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 251 



CHAPTER VllL. 

1778. — Letters to, and from, Washington and Laurens — Governor 
Livingston receives the thanks of Congress for his Examination 
of the Hospitals at Princeton and Trenton — Poetical Address 
to General Washington — Livingston re-elected Governor in 
November — Letter from the Baron Van Der Capellen. 

During the years 1778 and 1779, Governor Liv- 
ingston's correspondence was extensive, and per- 
haps more valuable than at any other period of 
his life. But nearly all the letters received by him 
during this time are lost or mislaid, probably owing 
to his frequent change of residence, and I am there- 
fore obliged to frame this portion of my narrative 
of extracts from his own letter-books, and such of 
those letters addressed to him as I have been able 
to recover from the manuscripts of his corres- 
pondents.* The first letter which I have to insert 
furnishes a strong instance of his unabated ardor in 

* I am here particularly called upon to express my obligations 
to Mr. Sparks, who has laid open to me the invaluable collection 
of the Washington papers, with his wonted desire to assist any 
fellow-labourer, however humble, in enterprises kindred to those 
in which he has himself had such great success ; and to Mr. Ed- 
ward R. Laurens, of South Carolina, to whom, through the kind 
offices of the Rev. Mr. Gilman, I am indebted for copies from the 
letter-books of Henry Laurens. 



252 THE LIFE OF 

the American cause, and his keen sense of repu- 
tation. It seems to refer to some questionable 
importation of goods made by a subject of the 
State. 

"TO COLONEL SEELY. 

" Morristown, 20th January, 1778. 
" Sir, 
" The Council of Safety agrees that the cargo 
for Mrs. B. is to be delivered to her — tea and 
sugar and all, which 1 think a most destructive 
precedent, and ruinous to the country, and do 
therefore most solemnly protest against it, and 
desire you not to mention it as done by the gov- 
ernor's consent, but by order of the Council of 
Safety. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

Governor Livingston had for some time previous 
to this corresponded with Henry Laurens, Presi- 
dent of Congress, on the subjects respecting which 
the stations they held rendered intercommunica- 
tion necessary. Although they were not personally 
known to each other, their similarity of views on 
many points, and their equal devotion to the Amer- 
ican cause, made it not difficult to substitute for 
the irksome formalities of an official correspond- 
ence, a more friendly tone, and Governor Living- 
ston on the 8th of January, addressed President 
Laurens a letter, the tenor of which may be suffi- 
ciently gathered from the following reply. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 253 

PRESIDENT LAURENS, TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

" 27th Jan. 1778. 
"Dear Sir, 

« I have but a moment at present for acknow- 
kdging, and returning thanks for the honour 
received in your excellency's favour of the 8th. 
I shall always reflect upon the tender of Gov. 
Livingston's friendship as one of the vfery happy 
events in my life. 1 will also sedulously endeavour 
to retain an acquisition, which feels the more 
valuable as it came unexpected. But alas, sir, 
what have I, who am neither a scholar nor a wit, 
to return in exchange for your polite correspond- 
ence ? Call me one step beyond the composition 
of a plain letter of business, and 1 am gravelled. 
If, after this frank and laconic declaration, your 
excellency shall be pleased to take me as 1 am, 
and to confirm the late proposition, you will find 
me faithful, ready to embrace occasions for evi- 
dencing an esteem which I had entertained for 
your character, long before the adventitious cir- 
cumstance of oflScial addresses had drawn me into 
your excellency's view. Set me down, therefore, if 
you please, sir, upon the premised conditions, as 
one of your humble servants, one who rejoices in 
the opportunity aflforded him of signifying his 
desire to be sincerely attached to you, and in 
nothing within the sphere of my capacity will your 
excellency be deceived, or wilfully disappointed 
by me. 

" If I were to indulge a querulous vein, I should 



254 THE LIFE OP 

detain your excellency by a long detail of disorder 
and distractions in all our public affairs, super- 
added to the baneful effects of avarice and pecula- 
tion. Among them, and not the least, the appear- 
ance, it would be warrantable to say raging, of a 
dangerous party-spirit ; but 1 forbear, and will still 
trust that the States will be awakened from their 
present lethargy, and again think it necessary to 
be represented in Congress by men of ability and 
in sufficient numbers. A most shameful deficiency 
in this branch is the greatest evil, and is indeed 
the source of almost all our evils. Admitting that 
we who are present were all, what truth knows we 
are not, it would not be possible for 21, often 15, 
and sometimes barely 9 States represented by 
units, to discharge with the accuracy and expedi- 
tion due to all business, the business which is daily 
presented to Congress, — much less, if that can be, 
to look into that which has long been in arrears. 
Hence thousands, I may say milhons, have been 
wasted, and are wasting every day. Hence our 
American foxes, holding unaccounted millions, 
have gained time enough to learn, and impudence 
enough to say, the powers of Congress fall short 
of compulsive means for bringing them to a 
reckoning. Besides, we want genius for striking 
out new matter, for correcting errors and repres- 
sing dangerous appearances, by measures wise, 
silent, and effectual. Your excellency is too well 
acquainted with the disorders of our domestic 
concerns ; I am sorry to assure you, all our foreign 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTOW. 255 

wear the aspect of mere chance-medley. Hence 
naked soldiers, death, replete hospitals, desertions 
and evacuated regiments ; hence, too, in my judg- 
ment, we are very lightly esteemed abroad, and 
probably are held up this very instant at auction ; 
part of the conduct of the faithful court of Ver- 
sailles will justify the suggestion. Is it not from 
these considerations incumbent upon every man 
of influence throughout our union, to exert his 
powers at this crisis, to exhort each State to fill 
up its representation in Congress, with the best, 
that is, the most sensible, vigilant, and faithful 
citizens.-^ At present it seems as if every such 
man had bought his yoke of oxen, and prayed to 
be excused. A little longer trifling will fix a 
galling yoke upon themselves. There is but one 
thing, 1 think, can prevent it. Our antagonist is 
as idle, as profligate as ourselves, and keeps pace 
with us in profusion, mismanagement, and family 
discord. 

" Some of us, however, should remember the 
fate of the quarreling curs, and guard against a 
similar decision, disgraceful and fatal. Methinks 
I can perceive design in our artful, spurious, half- 
friends, to come in for at least part of the bone. 
Perseverance in our present track will oblige us 
to run in debt more and more abroad ; and there 
are among us some who discover an amazing 
avidity to do so. Let us be dipped a few millions 
deeper in foreign debt, means will be easily found 
for protracting the war, and our flimsy independ- 



236 



THE LIFE OF 



ency will become abjectly dependent upon those 
who may either send their ships to collect accumu- 
lated interest, and dictate the mode of payment, 
or may obtain payment, if they prefer it,'in Thread- 
needle-street. — Will sober men rely upon the faith 
or the benevolence of kings ? Has France done 
one act of kindness towards us, but what has been 
plumply for the promotion of her own interest? 
has she not played off our commissioner-ambas- 
sadors like puppets ? She has bountifully offered 
us the loan of money, provided we would furnish 
her with the means for raising it. ' Contract for 
— hhds of tobacco, in order to help the revenue, 
and you shall have money.' We have received, 
and, I believe, spent without any visible profitable 
exchange, the money, but the tobacco is not 
shipped. What consequences must follow ? Inter- 
est, infallibly. Resentment and reprisal, when 
their pohcy shall direct. Has not France ' cau- 
tiously avoided every transaction that should seem 
to imply American independency ?' have we not 
been told, that ' every step was taken to gratify 
England pubUcly, forbidding American ships with 
mihtary stores to depart, then privately permitting 
them, recalling their officers who had obtained 
leave to go to America, but encouraging them to 
go in shoals, giving them strict orders that our 
prizes should not be sold in their ports, at the 
same time assuring us of their good-will, and 
intimating that these measures were necessary at 
present.' 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 257 

" Have not wc been also told that the French 
ministry, after reading our Quixotic propositions 
for a treaty, had said, * You have not bid high 
enough,' and that while we were keeping the 
knowledge of that treaty perfect free-masonry in 
Philadelphia, Lord Geo. Germain was laughing at 
it in the Plantation Office ? 

"These, sir, are old stories, but they are the 
most recent we have from that quarter. Our late 
packet from Plasy [Passy ?],* thro' the superabun- 
dant circumspection of our commissioners, im- 
ported nothing more than charte blanche. We 
have been jockeyed out of the original. We have 
the strongest proof of French perfidy, as well as of 
British imbecility, and American creduhty and 
puppetism. And yet, sir, we are dreaming on, 
trusting, as it were, to Providence, to give us this 
day our daily meed of brown paper, and drawing 
from France, as from an exhaustless spring, al- 
though she has told us in so many words, ' it isf 
impossible to lend us two millions sterling.' Our 
agents in the West Indies, without money and 
even over head and ears in debt. If Congress 

* In the letters of Laurens, the words enclosed thus [ ] are 
not in the original letter-book from which these copies were 
taken, and are inserted on supposition, to render the sense'perfect. 

t " It is morally impossible this can be true, and I believe they 
have already proved it by lending us a larger sum. I am afraid 
they have ; but extending a kindness under a plea of poverty 
heightens the obligation on one side, and strengthens the claim 
to grateful and suitable acknowledgments on the other- — H. L." 

KK 



258 THE LIFE OF 

were full, or even two-thirds full, might we not 
expect some men in the group who would look 
into these important matters, and continue means 
for playing a card against French policy ? It is 
not necessary that we should break off with 
France. We might make use of her. I am sure 
it may be done with good effect; but, as I have 
already intimated, it seems as if every man fit for 
these great purposes had married a wife and 
staid to prove her. Sir, 1 see and lament, — but 
I can do nothing more than a kind of negative 
good. I do no harm, and think myself very happy 
when 1 can countermine an intended evil. If there 
be not speedily a resurrection of able men, and of 
that virtue which I thought had been genuine in 
1775, we are gone, — we shall undo ourselves; we 
must flee to the mountains ; but wo to them who 
have been governors and presidents; who have 
given orders for borrowing the king's gunpowder, 
and for suspending the embarkation of his favourite 
warrior.* Forgive me, sir, I have been deceived 
in the time, and did not mean to have been so 
troublesome. 1 am, with very sincere regard, &c. 

"Henry Laurens." 

At the time the correspondence took place be- 
tween Washington and Livingston, from which I 
now proceed to give extracts, the head-quarters of 
the commander-in-chief were in the State of New- 
Jersey. 

* Burgoyno. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 2/)9 

GENERAL WASHINGTON TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

"Head-quarters, February 2d, 1778. 
" Sir, 

" I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt 
of your favour of the^^^h uh. 

" The recent detection of the wicked design 
you mention, gives me the most sensible pleasure ; 
and I earnestly hope you may be alike successful 
in discovering and disappointing every attempt 
that may be projected against you, either by your 
open or concealed enemies. It is a tax, however 
severe, which all those must pay who are called 
to eminent stations of trust, not only to be held up 
as conspicuous marks to the enmity of the pubhc 
adversaries to their country, but to the mahce of 
secret traitors and the envious intrio-iies of false 
friends and factions. * * * 

" You are pleased to intimate that you would 
take pleasure in recommending, at the approach- 
ing session of your Assembly, any hints from me 
respecting the army, by which your State can ad- 
vance the general interest ; I should be happy in 
offering any such in my power ; but as there is now 
in camp a committee of Congress, to confer with 
me at large on the measures proper to be adopted 
in every respect for the benefit of the army, what- 
ever shall be thought necessary to this end, will of 
course be communicated to you by Congress. 

" I have the honour to be, with real respect 
and regard, 

" Your Excellency's most obedient, &c. 

" Go. Washington." 



260 



THE LIFE OF 



GENERAL AVASHINGTON TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

" Valley Forge, February 14, 1778. 
« Sir, 

" I do myself the honour of transmitting you a 
letter from the committee of Congress now here. 
These gentlemen have represented the distress of 
the army for want of provision so fully, and in so 
just a light, that I shall forbear to trouble you with 
further observations upon the subject. I shall only 
observe, that if the picture they have drawn is im- 
perfect, it is because the colourings are not suffi- 
ciently strong. It does not exceed our real situa- 
tion. From your zeal and earnest wishes to pro- 
mote the service, I am firmly convinced we shall 
have every relief in your power to give. I should 
have troubled you before on this interesting and 
alarming business, had I not supposed Congress 
the proper body to have been informed, and that 
means of relief should be under their direction. 
Not to mention our distress the last campaign, and 
that we were supplied from hand to mouth, and 
frequently not at all, from the day Mr. Trumbull 
left the Commissary's department. This is the 
second time, in the course of the present year, 
that we have been on the point of a dissolution, 
and I know not whether the melancholy event may 
not take place. 

" The subject of horses, too, is so fully explained 
by the committee, that it is needless for me to en- 
large on that head. The advantages derived from 
a respectable cavalry will strike you at once, and 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 261 

I have the most entire confidence that you will 
with pleasure afford any aid in your power to pro- 
mote our views in this instance. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. 

"Go. Washington." 

« 

" TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

"Trenton, 16th February, 1778. 
" Sir, 

" I have received your Excellency's favour of the 
14th instant, this day, and that of the 4th a few 
days ago. * * * 

" With your request of the 14th, I shall comply 
as far as possible, and endeavour to procure to- 
morrow a resolution of both houses to authorize 
the President and Council of Safety to impress 
waggons for a limited time. But these, sir, are 
very temporary expedients. It is impossible for 
this State to cure the blunders of those whose busi- 
ness it is to provide tlie army, and considering 
what New-Jersey has suffered by the war, I am 
pretty sure it cannot hold out another year, if the 
rest will not furnish their proportionable share of 
provisions ; and for my own part, though 1 would 
rather spend the remainder of my days in a wig- 
wam at Lake Erie, than in the most splendid vessel 
of any arbitrary prince on earth, 1 am so dis- 
couraged by our public mismanagement, and the 
additional load of business thrown upon me by the 
villany of those who pursue nothing but accumu- 
lating fortunes to the ruin of their country, that 1 



262 THE LIFE OP 

almost sink under it. I do not say this, sir, to dis- 
courage you from applying to me at any time for any 
thing that is in my power to do, assuring you that 
it always gives me particular pleasure to contrib- 
ute in the least to alleviate that burden of yours to 
which mine does not deserve to be compared. 1. 
shall pursue the plan pointed out by the committee 
of Congress for procuring horses, and am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

GENERAL WASHINGTON TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

" Head-quarters, Valley Forge, ) 
February 22, 1778. ) 
" Sir, 

" Your favour of the 16th instant came duly to 
hand. I cannot but be highly sensible of the fresh 
proofs given of that zeal which yourself in particu- 
lar, and the State of New- Jersey in general have 
so uniformly manifested in the common cause, and 
of the polite regard you have in repeated instances 
shown to my applications. I lament the additional 
load of business heaped upon you from the sources 
you mention, and earnestly hope, that painful ex- 
perience will teach us to correct our former mis- 
takes and reform past abuses, as to lighten the 
burden of those whose whole time and attention 
are devoted to the execution of their duty and the 
service of the public. 

" I feel with you the absolute necessity of calling 
forth the united efforts of these States to reheve 
our wants, and prevent in future a renewal of our 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 2t)J 

distresses; and the impossibility of answering 
these purposes by partial exertions. Nothing on 
my part has been or will be omitted, that may in the 
least tend to put our affairs upon this only footing 
on which they can have any stability or success. 

" I shall be obliged to your excellency to send 
immediately to camp the troop of horse you can 
spare. 

" I have the honour to be, with great regard, sir, 
" Your most ob't serv't, 

"Go. Washington. 

" P.S. In terms similar to those addressed to 
you in my late letters, have I called upon Connec- 
ticut, New-York, Maryland, and Virginia, for aid in 
these our days of distress ; but nothing less than a 
change in the system can effect a radical cure of 
the evils we labour under at present." 

The letters from Washington to Livingston ex- 
hibit uniformly the same regard and confidence as 
are expressed in the above. Under date of the 
27th of September, 1779, the former writes, " Your 
Excellency will be sensible how much the honor 
and interest of these States must be concerned in 
a vigorous co-operation, should the event I have 
supposed happen, and I shall place *the fullest con- 
fidence in that wisdom and energy of which your 
Excellency's conduct has afforded such frequent 
and decisive proofs."* 

" MS. letter in N. J. State Library. 



264 THE LIFE OF 

" TO GENlSRAL WASHINGTON. 

" Trenton, 2d March, 1778. 
" Sir, 
" 1 have received your Excellency's favour of 
the 22d instant, and am happy to find that the 
State of New-Jersey possesses so great a share of 
your esteem, which I hope it will never forfeit by any 
remissness in such exertions for the general cause 
as it is capable of making. I am convinced the 
State is not behind hand with you in mutual regard ; 
and as to the personal friendship of your humble 
servant, if it is worth having at all, you have it upon 
the most solid principles of a full conviction of 
your disinterested patriotism, and will continue to 
have it while that conviction continues to exist, all 
the envious intrigues upon earth notwithstanding. 

#~it- "V. ")£. •it, 

"fl* "TT TV* ■«* 

" I have spent three days at Princeton, in pur- 
suance of a resolution of Congress of the 9th inst., 
to examine into the Quarter-master's and Commis- 
sary's department, and find that by removing the 
supernumeraries, and regulating a few abuses, the 
£64 10^. 3d., which that department now costs the 
continent per day, to supply about 200 sick with 
wood and provisions, may be reduced to £21 15^. 
2d. I shall give Congress the clearest proofs of 
the most unparralleled mismanagement — at this 
place I expect to find matters full as bad. 

tV* vr vp ^ ^ 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 265 

About this time, in compliance with a resohi- 
tion of Congress of the 9th of February, Governor 
Livingston prosecuted an examination, alluded to 
in the foregoing letter, which he had commenced 
the preceding year, into the condition and man- 
agement of the continental hospitals at Princeton 
and Trenton. At Princeton he removed various 
officers whom he considered unnecessary, and in 
relation to the establishment at Trenton, he drew 
up an elaborate report, as a basis of a reduction 
of its expenses. On the 11th March, Congress 
passed a vote of thanks for his care and diligence 
in effecting the reforms at Princeton. 

" TO COL. NATHANIEL SCUDDER, IN CONGRESS. 

'"Trenton, 20th March, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 

" I am obliged to you for your favour of the 
12th inst., and am very happy to find that my pro- 
ceedings respecting the supernumeraries in the 
department of Quarter-master and Commissary at 
Princeton have met the approbation of Congress. 
From my observation on the conduct of these 
cormorants here, I believe Princeton will appear a 

mere paradise to this Augean stable of , 

and every thing that defraudeth the continent. I 
have not yet been able, upon account of other 
business, to grasp the besom of destruction and 
sweep them into official nonentity. 

" I doubt not you have your hands full at Con- 
gress ; your loss here is sensibly felt. Indeed^ the 

LL 



266 THE LIFE OF 

change in both Houses is much for the worse. 
We have so few members of a turn for business, 
that the machine of our government moves slower 
than ever. God grant that their squabbles about 
the tax bill may not totally clog its wheels. After 
numberless essays for a coalition, the bill has been 
finally rejected by the Council, and whether the 
Assembly will have temper enough to originate a 
new one, I know not. The taxing of bonds was 
the great bone of contention, which was at last 
agreed to by the Council ; but with some clause, 
respecting a deduction for debts due on lands, to 
which the Assembly would not agree. Terrible 
will be the consequences if they adjourn without 
raising a tax. 1 had rather they should assess any 
thing, not even excepting laziness and ignorance, 
which would probably raise a larger revenue than 
all the rest of our produce. 

" The bill for filling up our battalions is also very 
slow in its movements. They seem terrified at the 
thought of draughting, and some of them were 
inclined to memorialize Congress for exempting 
this State ; the disgrace of which, considering the 
high estimation in which that august assembly 
hold us at present, would have chagrined me to 
death. In short, that fatal clause in the constitu- 
tion respecting a majority of voices, will yet prove 
our ruin. 1 can give you no farther news save that 
our horses live for the most part without proven- 
der, and that their masters subsist upon salt pro- 
visions. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 2G7 

« I regret with you, Mr. Petifs resignation of his 
office. Our ill-timed parsimony is a most destruc- 
tive distemper. * * * 

«f shall be glad to hear from you as often as 
your leisure will permit, and to be favoured with all 
the communicable news you have. I am, &lc. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

Scudder, to whom the preceding letter is ad- 
dressed, although contemptuously spoken of in one 
of General Lee's letters,* appears to have been 
a very estimable man. He at an early period em- 
braced the American cause, and for a long time 
represented the State in the Assembly, and in 
Congress. His name is affixed to the Confedera- 
tion of 1778. It was his fate not to live to enjoy 
the blessings of that independence for which he 
had contended. He fell in a skirmish with a party 
of the enemy who invaded New- Jersey in 1781. 

The following poetic tribute to Washington is 
extracted from CoUins's Gazette of 1st April, 1778, 
and is a good specimen of Livingston's serious 
poetical compositions. The original contains 105 
lines, and was published under the signature of 
Hortentius. The affectionate respect which it 
breathes towards its subject, and which may be 
traced through most of the author's letters, was 
deeply implanted in Livingston's breast, and was 
unobscured by the clouds which at several times 
hung round Washington's career. 

* Charles Lee's Memoirs. 



268 THE LIFE OF 

" L'esprit passe, niais la vertu dure,'' says a 
French writer, and this confession, not frequent in 
the mouths of the philosophers of that nation, of 
the superiority of virtue to mere intellect, is forcibly 
corroborated when we reflect that even had the 
most extraordinary instances of the latter never 
existed, the world would probably have been but 
httle behind where it is now. 

Had Columbus never lived, or had the grand 
fulfilment of his splendid visions not been granted 
to him, it seems probable that half a century could 
not have elapsed before the knowledge of the New 
World would have been supplied by the adventurous 
roaming of some ignorant mariner. The great 
work of Bacon would have been accomphshed 
more gradually, but as completely, by the suc- 
cessive efforts of many different, and even inferior 
minds and characters. Architecture, and the 
powers of steam are but little better understood 
at this moment than if Wren and Watts had never 
hved. Any single extraordinary intellect antici- 
pates by but a brief period, the results which we 
should otherwise owe to the combined and pro- 
gressive labours of the many. 

But there are times and seasons when intellect 
alone can do nothing, and when the steadfastness 
of purpose, the enlarged benevolence of heart, the 
rectitude of mind, which seem expressly created 
for the occasion, can be equalled by no efforts, 
however zealous, of the subordinate many. Such 
a period was our revolution, and such a man was 
Washington, — with whom every American eagerly 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 269 

seizes every opportunity to connect himself; of 
whom Fox has well said, in few but comprehensive 
words, that " his virtue was indeed superior to time 
and place."* . 

" TO HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL WASHINGTON. 
Say, — on what hallowed altar shall I find 
A sacred spark that can again light up 
The muse's ardour in my wane of life, 
And warm my bosom with poetic flame 
Extinguished long — and yet, Oh ! Washington — 
Thy worth unequalled, thy heroic deeds, 
Thy patriot virtues, and high-soaring fame 
Prompt irresistibly my feeble arm 
To grasp the long-forgotten lyre, and join 
The universal chorus of thy praise. 

* Tt" ^ tP ^ tP 

The arduous task absolved, the truncheon broke, 

Of future glory, liberty, and peace 

The strong foundations laid, methinks I see 

The godlike hero gracefully retire ; 

And (blood-stained Mars for fair Pomona changed), 

His rural seat regain. 

There recollecting oft thy past exploits, 
(Feast of the soul ne'er cloying appetite) 
And still assiduous for the public weal 
(Incumbent duty ne'er eflfaced), amid 
Sequestered haunts, and in the calm of life, 
Methinks I see thee, Solon-like, design 
The future grandeur of confederate States 
High towering ; or for legislation met 
Adjust in Senate what thou sav'dst in war, 
And when by thousands wept * * * " 

* Hist. James II. 



270 THE LIFE OF 



19th April, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
" Nothing is more common than petit excuses 
for dehnquency in epistolary correspondence. ' I 
have been so hurried with business — have not 
been very v^^ell — your letter was unluckily mislaid,' 
or something or other clumsily introduced to cloak 
sheer idleness. When these occur in my own line, 
1 smile at my friends' shortsightedness. Never 
had any poor culprit better ground for building to 
the utmost extent of his inabilities an] elaborate 
apologetic preface than is at this instant in posses- 
sion of your Excellency's debtor. He might, with- 
out impeachment of his veracity, aver he has dis- 
covered the art of uniting liberty and slavery — 
that for two months past, his masters have con- 
fined him, morning and afternoon, often till nine, 
and even past ten o'clock at night, fixing him im- 
movable for six hours together, to be bated and 
stared at, giving short intervals for refreshment, — 
and that [such] as were allowed to him were ne- 
cessarily devoted to public business, including 
much trash of incessant application by Frenchmen, 
and other as light-headed men, who watch his en- 
trance into his room, as keenly as a well-feed bailiff 
attends the nocturnal excursion of some poor fel- 
low who has been too liberal with his taylor and 
vintner. I might urge that I seldom write, but 
when other people are amusing themselves in bed. 
What becomes of Sunday .^^ That's my day of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 271 

rest. I write all day, and discharge half a week's 
arrears. Will you say you have not more than 
once toyed away an hour, talking nonsense with 
the pretty girl above stairs, and sometimes below 
stairs, since the 26th of February, when you re- 
ceived the governor's letter of the 5th ? No, I 
won't tell a story. But this is my only relief. I am 
lame, and can neither walk far, nor ride for exer- 
cise. 'Tis a much surer and pleasanter means for 
reanimation than lounging the hour in an elbow- 
chair, if I had one, cogitating and grumbling upon 
the cares and labours of the drudge of a political 
manufactory. But waving further interrogation 
calculated to ensnare me, let me answer in a word 
— I have writ oftener by once within six months past 
to Governor Livingston, than I have upon any sub- 
ject in my private estate, and perhaps the seeming 
indifference has arisen from the same reflection, I 
know neither of them will sufler by my silence. 
Be that as it certainly is, when 1 am called upon, I 
ought to answer, and I promise, in return for the 
very honourable duns which 1 have lately received, 
to write, whenever I can lay hold of matter, how- 
ever concise, which 1 shall think not unworthy the 
governor's notice. I will do myself the honour of 
attending his levee as constantly as possible; 
should there be an appearance of a little obtru- 
sion now and then in subject or manner, 1 shall 
know who will not be to blame. 

" ' What will you say to yonder long letter under 
the two short ones ?^ Maybe, not a word more 



272 THE LIFE OF 

at present. 'Tis Sunday, and although very early, 
1 am fatigued, and from the labours of the past 
week, I feel a sterility upon my natural barrenness. 
I must get off as well as I can. I'll tell the governor 
a cock-and-bull story about an important subsist- 
ing debate in our club, amuse him with my friend 
Chief Justice Drayton's speech upon articles of 
confederation, which, as a special favour, I have 
obtained for the purpose, add copies of a very hon- 
ourable correspondence lately held with the fallen 
hero of River Bouquet, — endeavour to draw his 
Excellency into a decision of questions upon par- 
liament order, and then conclude by repeating 
what is as true as any thing ever said by any chief- 
justice, hero, or parliament. 

" Sir, we have, within a month past, improved 
many whole days, and some tedious nights, by 
hammering upon a plan for a half-pay establish- 
ment for officers who shall continue in the army 
to the end of the present war. A most moment- 
ous engagement, in which all our labour has not yet 
matured one single clause, nor even determined 
the leading questions, to be or not to be. The 
combatants have agreed to meet to-morrow vis a 
vis, and by the point of reason, and by some things 
proxies for reason, put an end to the contest. I'll 
be hanged [if] they do. 

" Had I heard of the loss of half of my estate, 
the account would not have involved my mind in 
such fixed concern as I feel from the introducing 
of this untoward project. A refusal to gratify the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 273 

demand of the officers, will, as we are menaced, 
be followed by resignations from all those who are 
valuable. An acquiescence without an adequate 
provision or douceur, for officers of the militia, as 
well as for all the soldiery, will be attended by a 
loss of men, and prove a bar to future energy in 
those classes. We shall have no army. 

"If we provide pensions for one part of the 
people, from the labour of the other part, who 
have been equally engaged in the struggle against 
the common enemy, and who, to say the least, 
have suffered equal losses, the enormous debt, 
which will thereby be entailed on posterity, will be 
the. least evil. [The] constitution will be tainted, 
and the basis of independency will tremble. 

" Advocates for the measure say, ' the present 
pay of the officers is not sufficient to support them 
in character ; their estates are exposed to waste 
and loss from their personal absence ; they might, 
by various ways and means, from which they are 
now cut off, improve their fortunes, as their 
friends and acquaintances are daily doing; you 
must not confide in that virtue which you talk of, 
as the cement of the original compact ; there is 
none or very httle of such principle remaining. 
Upon your decision of this great question depends 
the existence of your army, and of your cause. If 
you say no, all, all your good officers will leave 
you.' — This is the substance and amount of pro. 
Con starts, — 'The demand is unjust, unconstitu- 
tional, unseasonable ; a compliance under menaces, 

M M 



274 THE LIFE OF 

dangerous; the reasoning from the loss of vn-tiie, 
and insufficiency of the present pay, not convin- 
cing. Unjust, because inconsistent with the original 
compact. Officers were not compelled, but eagerly 
solicited commissions, knowing the terms of ser- 
vice ; loss of estate, neglect of family, sacrifice of 
domestic happiness, exorbitancy of prices of every 
species of goods for the necessities or comforts of 
life, are [applicable] to every citizen in the union, 
and to thousands who are not officers, with greater 
force and propriety. Unjust, because without 
superior merit, officers demand a separate mainte- 
nance from the honest earnings of their fellow- 
citizens, many of whom will have been impover- 
ished by the effects of the war, and rendered 
scarcely able to pay their quota of the unavoidable 
burthen of equal taxes. Unjust in the extreme, to 
compel thousands of poor, industrious inhabitants, 
by contributions, to pamper the luxury of their 
fellow-citizens, many of whom will step out of the 
army into the repossession of large acquired or 
inherited estate, of some who have accumulated 
immense fortunes by purloin and peculation, under 
the mask of patriotism.' 'Tis held possible, by 
these naughty cons to produce more than one case 
in point. 

"'Compliance with a demand, unjust as it is 
extraordinary, with a penalty affixed, and delayed 
till the people are reduced to the awful alternative 
of losing the army and their liberties, would be 
dangerous, because it would be establishing a 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 275 

precedent to the soldiery ; because it would be to 
tax the people without their own consent ; because 
the people would have no security against future 
arbitrary demands ; because the attempt is to de- 
prive the representatives of free-agency, and to 
reduce that body to a state of subserviency ; be- 
cause it would lay the foundation of a standing 
army, of an aristocracy. The demand militates 
against articles of confederation, because it would 
have a tendency to waste the army by discouraging 
the militia and yeomanry in general to take the 
field ; abate the fervour of the warmest friends, 
and invigorate the hopes and endeavours of every 
class of our enemies,' &;c. &c. 

" ' The assertion of loss of virtue is not admitted 
as a fact, because the plan originated in a sphere 
above regimental command, from whence it was 
easy to roll down the glaring temptation.' 

"'Insufficiency of the present pay cannot be 
admitted, because the remedy proposed is not 
adequate to relief. Half-pay to commence at a 
distant period will not supply present wants. Suc- 
ceed in the first attempt, and by the same means 
we will compel Congress to augment pay.' 

" ' If officers withdraw, and the loss of the army 
and navy are to be consecutive events, by what 
'various ways and means' may officers improve 
their fortunes.'^ Where will be those lucrative 
employments which it is pretended they now envy ? 
But officers may retire when they please. So may 
senators ; and what then ?'' 



276 THE LIFE OF 

" A whole quire of paper would be too narrow 
to range in upon this topic. It is fortunate for you, 
sir, that Gen. Gates, an English newspaper, and 
two or three members of Congress, stepped in and 
knocked out of my head more than would have 
filled another sheet. If I can beg that newspaper, 
which contains some good things, it shall accom- 
pany the other papers. Let me conclude this 
head by observing, the cons move to postpone the 
consideration of the plan until the several States 
shall be fully informed and consulted. Here a 
strenuous advocate let out the cat. ' No, 1 am 
afraid the people will not consent.' What ! dare 
we bind the people in any case without, or against 
their consent? 'Tis very near akin to binding 
them in all cases. 1 must confess the aifair, for 
an affair of such magnitude, has been poorly con- 
ducted by the managers. 

" A report of the whole, called for in a certain 
assembly, being the order of the day — read once 
for information, the first paragraph read for de- 
bate, an amendment offered and received, a ques- 
tion on the amendment half-put ; a new proposition 
was started irrelative to the paragraph and amend- 
ment, — contrary to general consent, and having a 
tendency to set aside both. Question — Is it in 
order to receive and put to vote the proposition ? 

" A question was moved upon the order. Ques- 
tion — Is the latter motion, or the first, subject for 
a previous question ? 

" From what has been said, your Excellency will 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 277 

collect enough to determine on the article of con- 
fusion. That mass of paper lying there, which 1 
lug every day to and fro, would give a more ex- 
plicit answer on this point than, as 1 think, be- 
comes me. My own spirits, such as j, they are, 
keep in pretty equal tone. Men may bear pain 
with great equanimity in general, yet be impelled 
by sudden twitches to bawl out and sigh for a 
moment. 

" Things in public life were in extreme disorder 
when I had last the honour of writing to your 
Excellency, and besides, 1 beUeve other things in 
private were as crooked. I fancy I was a-bed in 
the gout. Some departments, which, as I don't 
mean to be invidious, I will not particularize, are 
shifted into more promising hands, and I entertain 
hopes, if we have an army, it will be better sup- 
plied than it has been, with entertainment for man 
and horse. But take a general view, and the 
prospect is still extremely mortifying. However, 
we have lately received acquisition of some abili- 
ties, though not half enough, and 'tis pretended 
the spirit of reformation is at our threshold. My 
colleague, Drayton, has given earnest of his de- 
termination to set his face against fraud in every 
shape, and to call upon those men who detain 
unaccounted millions. Thank God, we have other 
virtuous, sensible men to aid them. I believe 
things were, at the time alluded to, at the jivorst. 
Nothing but complete ruin would have proved the 
contrary. 



278 THE LIFE OF 

" Gen. Burgoyne hacl reached Rhode Island, and 
probably embarked about the 5th instant. His 
arrival in England will produce an excellent fund 
for polemics. 

" The knowing ones here will bet that terms of 
accommodation will be a prelude to the campaign. 
1 don't pretend to be related to that family, but I 
expressed the sentiment upon reading the speech 
of the 20th of November. 

" No pubhc good can be derived from spreading 
such opinions. A plausible pretence to treat in 
earnest will bring the union into a critical situa- 
tion, and [it] will demand all the wisdom of the 
thirteen States to counteract a finesse. 

" But for the visit above mentioned, I should 
have despatched the bearer at 9 o'clock this 
morning. My chain was broken. I went to 
church, and have finished in the evening, and 
ought to be charged one day's expense of the 
messenger. 

"I sincerely wish your Excellency health and 
safety, being, with the highest esteem and re- 
spect, &c. &c 

"Henry Laurens." 

general washington to gov. livingston. 

"Head-quarters, 22d April, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
" Ejiclosed I transmit you a Philadelphia paper, 
containing the draught of two bills introduced into 
Parliament by Lord North, and his speech upon 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 279 

the occasion. Their authenticity in Philadelphia 
is not questioned, and I have not the smallest 
doubt but there will be some overtures made us, 
similar, or nearly so, to the propositions held forth 
in the draughts. You will see their aim is, under 
offers of peace, to divide and disunite us, and un- 
less their views are early investigated and exposed 
in a striking manner, and in various shapes by able 
pens, 1 fear they will be but too successful, and 
that they will give a very unhappy, if not a ruinous 
cast, to our affairs. It appears to me, that we 
have every possible motive to urge us to exertion. 
If they are still for war, and of which there can 
be no .doubt, since they are straining every sinew 
and nerve to levy troops, it behooves us to be pre- 
pared. If for peace, our preparations are equally 
essential, as they will enable us to treat with hon- 
our, dignity, and I trust, to freedom. There 

are many important concessions in the speech, and 
which 1 hope will be improved to our advantage. 
If your leisure will possibly permit, I should be 
happy that the whole should be discussed by your 
pen. " 1 am, dear sir, 

" With great esteem, &c. 

" Go. Washington." 

" TO HENRY LAURENS, PRES't. ETC. 

"Chatham, 27th April, 1778, 
" Dear Sir, 
" I am under great obligations to you for your 
long and agreeable letter of the 19th instant, 



280 THE LIFE OF 

which I received yesterday, and considering my 
prompt pay such as it is, I know you will make an 
abatement in the price, that is to say, the length 
of my answer. 

"1 really pity you amid that multiplicity of 
business in which you are immersed, but if it 
should be our good fortune to drive the devils out 
of the country this summer, as I doubt not we 
shall, if we exert our endeavours in an humble 
rehance on the Lord of Hosts, instead of suffering 

ourselves to be gulled by the of Lord North, 

it will be a very pleasing reflection to us during 
the remainder of our lives, that we have been 
instrumental in delivering one of the finest, coun- 
tries upon the globe from that tyranny which 
would have rendered it hke Babylon, an habitation 
of owls and of dragons. You have my hearty 
thanks for the loan of the London Evening Post, 
which I return you according to request. The 
extraordinary freedom which these writers take in 
opposing the measure of the ministry, is a happy 
symptom of the national discontent. North is 
certainly at his wits' end, and as Hudibras says, 

' He that was great as Julius Caesar, 
Is now reduced like Nebuchadnezzar.' 

" 1 hope we shall not be such blockheads as to 
accede to ridiculous terms, when we have so fair 
a prospect of obtaining peace upon almost any 
terms ; tho' my good friends in New- York have 
faithfully promised to cut my throat for writing. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 281 

which they seem to resent more than fighting. I 
have already begun to sound the alarm in our 
gazette, in a variety of short letters, as tho' every- 
body execrated the proposals of Britain. Peace 
1 most earnestly wish for, but for Heaven's sake 
let us have no badge of dependence upon that 
cruel nation, which so lately devoted us to de- 
struction, and is so precipitately hastening her own. 
" If whatever is is right, a fortiori, whatever is 
by act of Congress must unquestionably be right. 
But in my private judgment, I should be totally 
against the plan of allowing the officers half-pay 
after the war. It is a very pernicious precedent 
in repubhcan states; will load us with an im- 
mense debt, and render the pensioners themselves 
in a great measure useless to their country. If 
they must have a compensation, I think they had 
better have a sum certain to enable them to 
enter into business, and become serviceable to the 
community. * * * 

" I am, kc. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

" TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

"Chatham, 27th ApriJ, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
"I had the honour yesterday of your Excel- 
lency's favours of the 15th and 22d April. * * * 
" 1 am obliged to your Excellency for the enclo- 
sures in your favour of the 22d of April. I enter- 
tain exactly the same sentiments with you concern- 

N N 



282 THE LIFE OF 

ing the design and tendency of the bill and in- 
structions — but I hope in this they will be (as 
in every thing else they have been) disap- 
pointed by that Providence which appears evi- 
dently to confound all their devices. I should have 
been .very happy to have received Lord North's 
speech only two days sooner, to have contributed 
my mite towards some observations upon it, to be 
inserted in the West New-Jersey Gazette; but it 
coming too late for that purpose, I must defer it to 
the succeeding week ; though I could wish it was 
undertaken by an abler hand, and one of greater 
leisure. To provide, however, some antidote to 
prevent meanwhile the operation of his lordship's 
poison, 1 have sent Colhns a number of letters, as 
if by different hands, not even excluding the tribe 
of petticoats, all calculated to caution America 
against the insidious arts of enemies. This mode 
of rendering a measure unpopular, I have fre- 
quently experienced in my political days to be of 
surprising efficacy, as the common people collect 
from it that everybody is against it, and for that 
reason those who are really for it grow discour- 
aged, from magnifying in their own imagination 
the strength of their adversaries beyond its true 
amount. * * * 

" I have the honour to be, 

" With the highest esteem, 
" Dear sir, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 283 

The following letter is valuable for the picture 
it presents of the State of New- Jersey at this 
time. 

"TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

" Morristown, 2d May, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
" I now sit down to inform your Excellency what 
number of our militia may be expected to join 
your army, which after all will, I fear, be in great 
measure conjectural. With the county of Bergen 
your Excellency is too well acquainted to want any 
information. Essex, Middlesex, and Monmouth, 
are all frontiers, and almost worn out in defending 
their own borders. The same is the case with 
Cumberland, a very spirited county — Salem, Glou- 
cester, and Burlington, especially the two latter, 
abound with tories, and are all exposed to the rav- 
ages of the enemy. Morris, Salem, Somerset, and 
Hunterdon, are therefore the only counties from 
which we can hope to draw any reinforcements 
for the grand army; and these supplying their 
quotas for the defence of our eastern and southern 
frontiers, I doubt whether they will produce more 
than 8 or 900 men for the purpose intended. As 
to arming them 1 hope there will be no difficulty, 
because we can take the arms of those who re- 
main at home. If your Excellency intends a grand 
push, what if you should call the militia from a 
greater distance.'^ Connecticut, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and New-York, with Pennsylvania and 



284 THE LIFE OF 

New-Jersey, would amount to a considerable 
force. 

" 1 am, with the highest regard, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

PRES't. LAURENS TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

"6th May, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 

" Affairs have assumed a different aspect from 
that which appeared when your Excellency writ 
the letter which I am just now honoured with, of 
the 27th April. 

" I took the earhest opportunity to transmit an 
abstract account of the intelligence which Con- 
gress received from France on the 2d instant, by 
putting under cover 3 or 4 copies directed to your 
Excellency [on] the 3d. But 1 had not time to 
write a decent syllable. The performance was 
Mr. Drayton's. I had given him the article rela- 
tive to the King of Prussia. This has been since 
questioned, because so interesting a circumstance 
had not been intimated in the public letter from 
our commissioners, but I rely on my authority. 
Mr. Izard wiites to me the 16th February : 
' The King of Prussia has given the most explicit 
and unequivocal assurance that he will be the 
second power in Europe to declare the independ- 
ence of America.' 

" I think myself happy in being entirely of opin- 
ion with your Excellency, respecting independence 
and the half-pay scheme. This last business lags 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 285 

exceedingly. 1 believe we wait for auxiliaries. I 
have no objection against liberal acknowledgments 
of the service of officers and soldiers — any thing 
that will not strike at our constitution. But if we 
can't make justice one of the pillars, necessity will 
prove a temporary support. We may submit to it at 
present. Republicans will, at a proper time, with- 
draw a grant which shall appear to have been ex- 
torted. This, and the natural consequences, I 
dread. 

" When the account of the treaties of the 6th 
February had reached Whitehall, administration 
were perplexed, they were stunned. 1 have a let- 
ter which may be trusted, informing me that Lord 
Mansfield, in tears, applied to Lord Camden as a 
good man, to interpose for the salvation of the king- 
dom. His lordship alluded to his repeated predic- 
tions, which had been treated with contempt, and 
intimated his fears that the door was shut. 

" Another letter which I have received from the 
mercantile line, convinces me [that] the weight of 
the war lay heavy — that the whole nation was vio- 
lently agitated. My influence is even asked to 
prevail upon America to accept the terms intended 
to be proposed, meaning the conciliatory bills. I 
don't know that I have a spark of influence. If I 
had much, the whole should be thrown into the 
opposite scale. 

" 1 remember something of Dr. Frankhn's hav- 
ing proposed to a certain king a plan for reducing 
a great empire to a small kingdom. . The enclosed 



286 THE LIFE OF 

Evening Post contrasts to Alfred the Great a, 
certain emperor of a floating island. 

" I won't forget to inquire to-morrow concern- 
ing the money for the hght horse. 1 am sensible 
that in numberless instances we improve our tal- 
ents in the same degree of loss. The misman- 
agement of our finances, 1 often lament. Our 
children will feel the effects. * * * 

" Henry Laurens." 

" TO HENRY LAURENS, PREs't. ETC. 

« Morristown, 7th May, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
" 1 have the pleasure of your favour of the 27th 
ultimo, covering copies of an act of Congress of 
the 23d inst. The measure may be founded in 
good policy, and just at this time gave a shock to 
the enemy ; but I conceive it will in this State be 
far from popular. We have suffered so much from 
tories, and there is in some of our counties so 
rooted an aversion against that sort of gentry, 
that the more sanguine whigs would think it ex- 
tremely hard to profTer them all the immunities of 
that happy constitution, which they at the risk of 
their lives and fortunes have battled out of the 
jaws of tyranny, while the others have meditated 
our destruction, spilt our blood, and in all proba- 
bility protracted the war at least a year longer than 
it would otherwise have lasted. And as to our 
heartily forgiving them, I think that will rather 
require a double portion of the grace of God, 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 287 

than be effected by a thousand resolves of Con- 
gress. 

« I am entirely of your opinion that we are now 
verging towards an important crisis. We have 
the subtlety of two very politic nations to contend 
with, and history is full of examples, that people 
have been deluded by artifice into ruin, when they 
could not be subdued into it by war. I should 
think that we ought not to be restricted in the ap- 
pointment of our plenipotentiaries to any particu- 
lar district. France and Britain seem to me hke 
two great merchants recurring to America for a 
market, and I hope we shall not be such block- 
heads as to sell our commodities too cheap. 

" It must be extremely mortifying to the minis- 
try to be obliged to stoop to the minority for their 
interest with us, to make us relish their terms of 
accommodation. For the letter from Governor 
Johnstone must have been procured by downright 
ministerial coaxing. That gentlemen has too 
much sense, and is too great a friend to America 
to think that she ought to have any dependent con- 
nexion with such an abandoned degenerate people. 
1 cannot but think that Congress, as well as we 
httle folks, in speaking on this subject, do not ap- 
pear to be fully possessed of the idea of our inde- 
pendence. We talk and reason as though Great 
Britain still had some claim upon us. Should we 
not laugh at any other nation that presumed to 
pass bills concerning their right of imposing duties 
upon us, or regulating our commerce ? And have 



288 THE LIFE OF 

they any more business with us than the Emperor 
of Morocco ? But our affection for the EngUsh, 
from whom we are descended ! And why not for 
the same reason give up our hberties to the Elec- 
tor of Saxony, as the Saxons are our more primitive 
ancestors ? Let them first withdraw their troops, 
and think themselves happy if we do not follow 
them to London — and let us take care to have 
such an army in the field, as to enable us to talk 
properly, and to treat with dignity. They will and 
must come to it, if we insist upon it. 

" I am with the highest respect, &;c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

"The following letter is marked by the same 
enlarged spirit of toleration and sound common 
sense, which we have seen to characterize the 
early productions of the writer. 

"TO THE REV. MR. JOHN MASON. 

" Princeton, 29th May, 1778. 
"Dear Sir, 

" I am much obliged to you for your kind letter 
of the 27th instant, and the favourable sentiments 
you are pleased to entertain concerning the de- 
signs of Providence, in raising me to my present 
station. May it please God to enable me to 
answer the honourable expectations of the genuine 
friends of liberty, and especially the pious hopes of 
the real friends of Zion. 

"To have prefaced the confederation with a 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 289 

decent acknowledgment of the superintending 
Providence of God, and his conspicuous interpo- 
sition in our behalf, had doubtless been highly 
becoming a people so peculiarly favoured by 
Heaven as the Americans have hitherto been. 
But any article in the confederacy respecting 
rehgion was, 1 suppose, never in contemplation. 
The States being severally independent as to 
legislation and government, tho' connected by the 
foederal league for mutual benefit, were presumed 
to have formed a political constitution to their 
own liking, and to have made such provision for 
religion as was most agreeable to the sentiments of 
their respective citizens ; and to have made the 
* law of the eternal God, as contained in the sacred 
Scriptures, of the Old and New Testament, the 
supreme law of the United States,' would, 1 con- 
ceive, have laid the foundation of endless alterca- 
tion and dispute, as the very first question that 
would have arisen upon that article would be, 
whether we were bound by the ceremonial as well 
as the moral law, delivered by Moses to the people 
of Israel. Should we confine ourselves to the law 
of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the New 
Testament (which is undoubtedly obligatory upon 
all Christians), there would still have been endless 

disputes about the construction of the of 

these laws. Shall the meaning be ascertained by 
every individual for himself, or by public authority ? 
If the first, all human laws respecting the subject 
are merely nugatory; if the latter, government 

o o 



290 



THE LIFE OF 



must assume the detestable power of Henry the 
Eighth, and enforce their own interpretations with 
pains and penalties. 

" For your second article, I think there could 
be no occasion in the confederacy, provision 
having been made to prevent all such claim by 
the particular constitution of each State, and 
the Congress, as such, having no right to inter- 
fere with the internal police of any branch of 
the league, farther than is stipulated by the 
confederation. 

" To the effect of part of your third article, that 
of promoting purity of manners, all legislators and 
magistrates are bound by a superior obligation to 
that of any vote or compact of their own ; and the 
inseparable connexion between the morals of the 
people and the good of society will compel them 
to pay due attention to external regularity and 
decorum; but true piety again has never been 
agreed upon by mankind, and 1 should not be 
willing that any human tribunal should settle its 
definition for me. 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." ' 

" TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

" Princeton, 29th May, 1778. 
"Dear Sir, 
" I am quite ashamed of my present application, 
as it necessarily infers a neglect of duty in those 
whom I do not choose to blame. It were tedious 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 291 

to give you a narrative of the fruitless pains I have 
taken, to have this State supphed with proper 
magazines of arms and ammunition. But so it" is, 
that we must now either fight without powder and 
ball, or not fight at all. If your Excellency can 
possibly spare any cartridges for different bores, I 
beg they may be ordered, with all possible des- 
patch, to Jonathan Baldwin, Esq. of this place, 
who has directions to distribute them. If none 
are to be had from the continental stores, but we 
can be supplied with lead, I have powder sufficient 
for the purpose. Thinking it too tedious to 
procure the lead in this State (of which there 
is a considerable quantity in the hands of the dis- 
affected), by an act to seize it for the public use, 
which I recommended to the House this morning. 
I since procured the resolution, of which the en- 
closed is a copy, as the only mean I could devise 
to give us seasonable relief Our militia appear 
in high spirits, and I trust they will fight, if they 
can be equipped for the battle. If your Excellency 
has a moment's leisure, please to favour me with 
your conjectures concerning the movements of 
our old friends, the Britons. I believe they are as 
much puzzled about the route they intend to take, 
as we are to discover their intentions. 

" With the greatest esteem and warmest wishes 
for your success, 

«' I am, dear Sir, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 



292 THE LIFE OF 

In the latter part of the above letter, the writer 
refers to the expected march of the British from 
Philadelphia to New-York, across New-Jersey. 

In June of this year, Philip Livingston, brother 
of the subject of this memoir, died at Philadel- 
phia, where he was in attendance upon Congress 
as a delegate from New-York. By some he was 
considered the ablest member of his family, and 
his death, though it happened at an early period 
in our revolutionary contest, did not take place 
before he had intimately connected his name with 
the history of the country. He was born in 1716, 
graduated at Yale in 1733, and not long after- 
wards commenced business as a merchant in New- 
York. From 1754 to 1762, he was a member of 
the Common Council of this city, and in 1759, he 
was returned to the Assembly. 

From the commencement of the troubles be- 
tween the colonies and the mother country, Mr. Liv- 
ingston took an active and prominent part on the 
side of the former; and in October 1765, was made 
a member of the Stamp-act congress convened 
at New-York, to imbody and organize the oppo- 
sition of the several provinces to this obnoxious 
measure. He retained his seat in the colonial 
Assembly until 1768, when he was made speaker 
of that body. In 1769, when the ministerial party 
acquired an ascendency, Livingston was returned 
from his brother's manor, but his seat was imme- 
diately declared vacant on the ground of his being 
a non-resident of the district which he represented. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 293 

In 1774, he was chosen a member of the first 
continental Congress, and in April 1775, between 
the dissolution of this body and the assembling of 
the second, he acted as president of the provincial 
Congress of his colony. In May he took his seat 
in the second continental Congress, and the next 
year affixed his name to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. In May 1777, he was chosen a Sena- 
tor under the new constitution of this State ; and 
in October was again delegated to Congress. He 
died on the 12th of June, 1778. My limits allow 
me to make no more than this hurried mention of 
Philip Livingston, and this meager collection of 
dates affords but a faint idea of that vigour of 
conduct, and steadfastness of purpose which gave 
him in his day, an influence and ascendency to 
which contemporary history bears full witness. 

" TO HENRY LAURENS, PRES't., ETC. 

•'Princeton, 18th June, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 
"We can see a mote in our brother's eye when 
we cannot discern a beam in our own. You may 
remember I blamed you some time since most des- 
pately for remaining so long in my debt; and had 
we then been an appendage of Old England, as in 
* times of yore, I should have been tempted in my 
wrath to have prosecuted her statutes of bank- 
ruptcy against you; and now behold 1 find myself 
head-over-heels in debt to you ; and what is worse 
than all, know not how to discharge it, without 



294 THE LIFE OF 

turning you into (what 1 am sure it is impossible 
to turn you) the unjust steward, who consented to 
score fifty for ten. 

*' But by the help of an inch of candle (a very 
common thing with us since the continental 
butchers steal all the tallow), and a good glass of 
wine (a very uncommon one, and like to be so, till 
we declare war against Portugal), I have just 
stumbled upon an argument that will melt you into 
forgiveness, as a just steward, and that is, that my 
late delinquency has not proceeded from idleness, 
but an incessant engagement in business as a poor 
humble fellow-labourer, and a very distant co-ope 
rator with your honour in the same glorious cause, 
which, blessed be God, and huzza for Louis XVI., 
promises much fairer to lift its head triumphant 
over British oppression than it did a year ago. 
Indeed, sir, I do not eat the bread of idleness, but 
with the enemy at both of the extremities of the 
State, a scoundrel pack of tories in the centre, and 
no inconsiderable number of neutrals and mon- 
grels between that and the periphery of the bor- 
ders, I can assure you that 1 have a sufficient 
choice of troubles ; and were it not for an uncom- 
mon constitution and a good stock of spirits, or 
as the song says, a light heart and a thin pair of 
breeches, I have met with discouragements that 
might have discomfited a man of much greater 
natural fortitude. But our present prospect ought 
to animate the most pusillanimous, and inspire a 
very coward with magnanimity. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 295 

" His Christian Majesty is certainly a very clever 
fellow, and 1 drink his health- whenever I can get 
wine to do it in (and that without any scruple 
about the difference between the French King and 
the King of France), thinking it an abomination, 
and highly derogatory to the dignity of Le Grand 
Monarch, to toast him in toddy. I hope his Cath- 
olic Majesty will soon give us an opportunity to 
express our affection for him in the like sociable 
manner ; and if there be any foundation for the 
treaty which the English news-writers have fabri- 
cated for us in the Mediterranean, depend upon it, 
I shall not forget the Emperor of Morocco, as 
great a Mahometan as he is. 

" The meandering mana3uvres of the enemy, on 
the evacuation of Philadelphia, appear altogether 
inextricable. Indeed, did they not generally pro- 
ceed upon the principle of all mad schemes to 
adopt the maddest, I should have no idea of their 
marching through New-Jersey. Nothing less than 
a double draught of the waters of Lethe can have 
made them forget the drubbing they received last 
year for attempting that route, without first apply- 
ing for a passport. And I doubt not, if they try it 
again, our militia will be more prompt than 
ever to receive them with all the proper military 
honours. 

" By the protracted voyage of the British com- 
missioners, they will arrive with the terms of the 
treaty all ready cut and dried. But I flatter my- 
self that America can negotiate as well as fight ; 



296 THE LIFE OF 

and if Old England is for employing subtlety in 
the business, I could select some Eastern sages of 
sufficient ability so to word any compact as to be 
capable of twenty different constructions, and all 
equally plausible with the one that really was the 
true intent of the parties. 

" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

The commissioners, the Earl of CarHsle, John- 
stone, and others, who came out to the colonies 
in this year to negotiate terms with them on the 
part of the British ministry, are alluded to in the 
above, and several other letters written about this 
time. Their mission terminated, it is well known, 
firuitlessly. 

In the month of June of this year, at which pe- 
riod we have now arrived, the British left Phila- 
delphia, to return to New-York across New-Jersey. 
On their route the battle of Monmouth, memora- 
ble in more than one point of view, was fought. A 
severe invective of Collins, the editor of the New- 
Jersey Gazette, against the conduct of the unfortu- 
nate General Lee, occasioned an interchange of 
letters between that officer and Governor Living- 
ston — that written by the former is unfortunately 
lost; that of the latter, of the 16th of Jan. 1779, is 
printed in the memoirs of General Lee.* It is 
characteristic, and while calculated to soothe the 

* Lond. 1792. Rep. N. Y. 1813. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 297 

offended dignity of the eccentric man, shows no 
desire of gratifying his peculiarities of temper, by 
any sacrifice of truth.* 

" TO HENRY LAURENS, PREs't. ETC. 

" Morristown, 23d July, 1778. 
" Dear Sir, 

" It is an argument of our depravity, that we are 
more apt to pray for deliverance in distress, than 
to be thankful after we are extricated from it. 
Theology apart, and to speak after the manner of 
men, such conduct must be acknowledged to be 
very selfish and ungenerous. 

" The miracles which Providence has wrought 
for us, in our most distressed situation, display the 
most illustrious proofs of his supreme government 
of the world, and demand our most unfeigned 
gratitude, for the continual and astonishing inter- 
position of Heaven in our behalf 

" I was in great hopes, upon the intelligence of 
our alliance with France, that Congress would 
have appointed a day of public thanksgiving. 
The arrival of the French fleet is an additional 
motive for such a solemnity. Our fields are 
loaded with a most plenteous harvest, which of 

* At the time of the battle of Monmouth, as I am informed by 
Major Morford, of Princeton, one of the few remains of the gal- 
lant band of the revolution. Governor Livingston was at that 
place ; the Assembly, which frequently met at that town, some- 
times sat in the tavern now kept by Mr. Joline, and the dancing- 
room in that building was then, I am told, the Court of Chancery. 

PP 



298 THE LIFE OF 

itself deserves, as a public blessing, to be ac- 
knowledged with public gratitude. Our late suc- 
cesses are great and numerous, — our prospect in 
future animating and glorious. I cannot but think 
that such a measure is an indispensable duty, and 
I dare affirm that it would be extremely agreeable 
to all pious people, who are all friends to America, 
for I never met with a rehgious tory in my life. 
Among other blessings I am thankful that Mr. 
Laurens presides over Congress, and that he has 
been pleased to honour with his friendship his 
most humble servant, 

"WiL. Livingston." 

The following extract from a letter written by 
Governor Livingston from Morristown, 25th July, 
1778, to Samuel Allinson, a Quaker, shows how 
thoroughly the principles of republicanism and 
equality were implanted in his mind. We shall 
find his efforts directed to the abohtion of slavery 
rewarded by, at least, partial success at a later 
period. 

" Respecting the slavery of the negroes, I have 
the pleasure to be entirely of your sentiments, and 
I sent a message to the Assembly the very last 
session, to lay the foundation for their manumis- 
sion; but the House thinking us in rather too criti- 
cal a situation to enter into the consideration of it 
at that time, desired me, in a private way, to with- 
draw the message. But I am determined, as far as 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 299 

my influence extends, to push the matter till it is 
effected, being convinced that the practice is 
utterly inconsistent with the principles of Chris- 
tianity and humanity, and in Americans, who 
have almost idolized liberty, peculiarly odious 
and disgraceful."* 

* I insert the following from a memorandum of Governor Liv- 
ingston, made about this time, to give an idea of his various and 
perplexing duties. 

" Agenda et desideranda by the Council of Safety, to meet at 
Morristown, Tuesday, 18th August, 1778. 

1. Money to be drawn for upon the treasury. 

2. The apprehended invasion of Sussex, by Butler's party of 
tories and Indians. See Col. Westbrook's letter to General 
Winds, 14th August last. 

3. Mr. Mercier to be paid for the flints he purchased in Bos- 
ton for the use of this State. 

4. Part of the flmts to be sent for to Princeton, and lodged 
with Col. Hathaway in Morris. 

5. The lead collected by General Winds to be sent for to 
Elizabethtovra, and lodged with Col. Hathaway. 

6. Hayne's case. 

7. Bergen prisoners committed to Morris jail by Justice Ack- 
erman. 

8. Guard at Closter lately commanded by Capt. Haring. 

9. Gerrit Rapelye. 

10. The robbery committed by C — 's party in Pennsylvania, 

11. A — and T. R — , two prisoners at Melston, to be sent to 
Hunterdon jail. See Sheriff" D.'s letter, Uth August last. 

12. Recruits from Chambers's battalion. 

13. Col. Thomas' case. 

14. Prisoners from Sussex." 



300 THE LIFE OP 

PREs't. LAURENS TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

"21st August, 1778. 
"Dear Sir, 
" I was honoured with your Excellency's very 
obhging favour of the 3d inst., on the 12th; not 
a day has since passed without an earnest de- 
sire in my mind to pay my respects to it, but 
other employment obliged me, day by day, to say 
* to-morrow.' 

" We have nothing new from Spain, I mean new 
to me. Gentlemen not only smiled, but laughed 
at my ideas expressed while we were reading the 
treaties with France, that the Spaniard had his 
eye upon the Floridas and Providence, in order to 
secure the Straits of the Gulf My conjecture 
was founded on seeing the bauble of Bermuda 
thrown in to us, and not a word said of Bahama. 
I have lately received strong confirmation of my 
suspicions. The post of St. Mark's having been 
withdrawn by the English, a Spanish guard, 1 
suppose from Pensacola, succeeded them. These 
had a conference lately with our friendly Creek 
Indians, and in the course of their talks intimated 
to the savages, that Spain would soon be repos- 
sessed of that post and adjacent country. A vene- 
rable Don, who lately dined with me, let the cat a 
little further out. Speaking of the late abortive 
expedition against St. Augustine, a gentleman 
observed in French, that East Florida would be a 
great acquisition to South Carolina and Georgia. 
My good friend, Don Juan, either unwarily, or 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 301 

supposing I did not understand, replied with much 
gravity, ' and also for Spain.' 1 drank a glass of 
ale with the Don. 

" This I really mean, sir, as a secret, and if we 
keep it so, the discovery may be applied to good 
purposes, when we come to treat in earnest. 

" 1 am afraid our present commissioners are 
not apprized of the immense value to our whole 
Union of St. Augustine and Bahama, and that too 
many of us here view the possession in a Hght of 
partial benefit. If the lampoon of New-York hurt 
Gov. Johnstone, W. H. D.'s declaration will not be 
received as an healing-plaster ; this thing, by-the- 
by, was sadly hurried up ; I had been for a fortnight 
anxiously soliciting my friend out of doors to in- 
troduce an act or resolve to the same effect ; but 
through delay, we were necessitated to accept 
of a stiff performance, without time for proper 
amendments. 

" Your Excellency may not have seen the late 
remonstrance and requisition of Gov. Johnstone 
and his colleagues. I shall enclose with this a 
copy of that, and of Mr. Adam Ferguson's letter 
which ushered the paper, calculated, as I presume, 
to retort upon Congress for the late publication 
signed ' Charles Thomson.' It is impossible they 
can conceive that Congress will admit their com- 
mission for quieting disturbances, founded on a 
special act of parliament, as sufficient authority 
for making a ' distinct and exphcit ratification of 
the convention of Saratoga' — or, that it contains a 



302 THE LIFE OF 

* proper notification by the court of Great Britain 
to Congress.' 

"Congress have committed their paper; an 
honour which, in my humble opinion, it is not 
entitled to. 

" The act of the 8th of January has exceedingly 
embarrassed the wise men of the east. A confor- 
mity with the terms will amount to an acknowledg- 
ment of our capacity to treat as a nation. Any- 
thing below, will imply a continued claim upon us 
as subjects in rebellion, to which we will not 
subscribe. Hence the court perceive the dilemma 
to which she is reduced by a few cunningly de- 
signed words, dropped fi*om the pen of her ma- 
rionette^ Lieutenant-general John Burgoyne, Esq., 
who has acknowledged in Parliament that he 
solely penned his infamous proclamation, and in 
the same moment declared he had no intention 
to carry his threats into execution. And it is not 
to be wondered, that in such circumstances, they 
instruct their present minions to try the effect of a 
little ambi-dexterity. 

" I am, with high esteem, &c. 

"Henry Laurens. 
" P.S. I have been long out of humour with the 
too comprehensive term ' continental,' and have a 
strong inclination to coin ' confoederal.' If your 
Excellency has no objection, it shall pass." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 303 

PRES't. LAURENS TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

" 1st September, 1778. 
« Dear Sir, 

" Your very obliging favour of the 21st reached 
me the 25th, and has been ever since lying in my 
view. A scroll of the same date, which I had the 
honour of writing, will have informed your Excel- 
lency that I was not dead. I have not leisure for 
attending to a business which we ought to be least 
concerned about. 

" More of my time than usual had indeed been 
engaged in eating and drinking in that interval of 
silence which is so kindly pointed to in your Excel- 
lency's letter, and as I make it a rule never to 
neglect my duty, a faithful discharge had en- 
croached largely upon hours which are generally 
passed on the pillow ; this excluded much of my 
satisfaction in private correspondence, but the 
honeymoon is over. We have slacked into an 
easy trot again, and Mr. Gerard is an excellent, 
sensible, sociable neighbour, and conducts his 
visits without that formality which is an interrup- 
tion to a drudging president. I presented, a day or 
two ago. Governor Livingston's compliments to 
him; he longs to see you; and 1, sir, shall think 
my paper correspondence realized by the honour 
of your Excellency's company. Upon my honour, 
sir, 1 have many things to say, which ought to be 
said, and which I would attempt to say as properly 
as loudly, were I not exactly in the station I am. 

"I do assure you, sir, our circumstances are 



304 THE LIFE OF 

truly deplorable. I would touch gently on profli- 
gacy of time and treasure, upon connivals or col- 
lusion, folly or tyranny, especially when I meant to 
impute any or all these to a person whose bottom 
of heart was good, or where the innocent might 
suffer for the errors of the mistaken, as soft a term 
as I can think of But 'tis high time to pursue 
measures for the protection of those innocents, 
who are kept in an implicit belief that all is soHd 
gold because of the much glistering — a worm in 
one night destroyed the mansion of Jonah. 

" Mr. Deane, late one of our commissioners, has 
been near two months with us. We know too 
much, and yet I almost fear we know nothing of 
our affairs in Europe. I do not mean hence to 
impute blame to Mr. Deane ; he has complained 
heavily to me in private of inattention on our part 
* * * * serious matters, entre nous. 

" Three hours, my dear sir, have I been writing 
(not studying one second what I should write), 
these two pages ; — perpetual influx of personages 
of all sorts this morning, as if people had de- 
termined 1 should never write to Governor Living- 
ston again. The finger now points to 9. I must 
fly to be in the way of my duty, although ex- 
perience has taught me I shall have squandered 
an hour and an half when I enter upon it. 

" For your Excellency's amusement, entertain- 
ment, and information, 1 shall send with this copies 
of curious papers, which 1 have just received from 
Messrs. les Commissioners, who, as the merchants 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 305 

express, have discarded one partner, and opened a 
house under a new firm. In the language of an 
old fellow, I say, had my advice hem followed at York- 
town^ we should have preserved our dignity, given 
satisfaction to our constituents, and have been 
free from the impertinent attacks of these people. 
Mr. Johnstone's declaration in particular, cannot 
escape in New-Jersey the correction it deserves, 
when the proper time shall come, of which due 
notice shall be given ; it ought to be bated every- 
where. 

" I go now to see whether we can with good 
grace recover the ground on which we stood on 
the last fast-day, 22d of April. Adieu, dear sir. 
" 1 am, with much affection and respect, &c. 

" Henry Laurens." 

"to henry LAURENS, PRES't., ETC. J^-J '*J**^ 

"Princeton, 17th September, 1778. <yf'^^' 
" Dear Sir, °^- '^'"^^ 

" I have very little faith in dreams ; but when- 
ever those unaccountable visions of the night make 
so strong an impression upon the sensorium, as 
that 1 can recollect in the morning whole para- 
graphs and pages of what I dreamed, or read, or 
heard while asleep, 1 always commit them to writ- 
ing for the sake of observing the difference be- 
tween one's sleeping and waking vagaries ; and as 
the former with respect to myself may at this time 
of life be full as sensible and entertaining as the 
latter, I take the liberty to send your Excellency 



306 THE LIFE OF 

my last night's dream, which, to prevent any suspi- 
cion of wilful defamation, and recollecting that 
during the reigns of the Roman emperors, many a 
poor fellow was capitally punished for dreaming 
about his superiors, I shall communicate to no- 
body but yourself 

" Methought a little fairy, ten thousand times as 
handsome as the most beautiful tory lady in Phila- 
delphia, with her top-gallant commode, stood at 
my bed-side (she must either have come through the 
key-hole, or a broken pane of glass, as 1 am positive 
the door was locked), and delivered me a paper 
with the identical words contained in the enclosed, 
and then instantly vanished without uttering a syl- 
lable except — hut virtue is its own reward. 

" ' FACTS. 

" ' The largest return of the army commanded 

;\«»V.\ by Major-General Sullivan in his attempt against 

."> . ' Rhode Island, never amounted to ten thousand 

iViN.tif men; so that the militia of the eastern States 

which joined him could not have exceeded five 

thousand men. 

"'To join his Excellency General Washing- 
ton in his pursuit of the enemy thrx)' New-Jersey, 
the firing of a tar-barrel, and the discharge of a 
cannon, instantly collected four thousand of our 
militia in the time of harvest, to co-operate with 
the grand army. 

" ' The eastern volunteers, which composed great 
part of General Sullivan's army, returned home 
before his retreat. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 307 

" * The Jersey militia continued with General 
Washington till the enemy was routed, and their 
assistance no longer necessary. 

" ' General Sullivan seems rather to complain of 
the eastern militia's going off^ and reducing his num- 
bers to little more than that of the enemy. 

" General Washington declares his deep sense 
of the service of the New-Jersey militia, in opposing 
the enemy on their march from Philadelphia.^ and for 
the aid which they had given in harassing and impeding 
their motions., so as to allow the continental troops to 
come up with them. 

" ' The honourable the Congress, by their resolve 
of liie 10t h instant , declare their high sense of the '^'^fT ' > 
patriotic exertions made by the four eastern States ' 
on the late expedition against Rhode Island. 
" 'But 

" ' By no resolve did Congress ever manifest any 
sense of the patriotic exertions of the State of New- 
Jersey in twice putting the enemy to rout, in their 
march through that State, with nearly their whole 

army. 

" ' Oberon, Chief of the Fairies."* 

" I am, with the highest respect, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

To the complaint made in this fictitious dream 
in behalf of the State of New-Jersey, Laurens sent" 
the apparently satisfactory reply alluded to in the 
following letter ; but unfortunately 1 have not been 
able to obtain it. . . ^ ^ 



308 THE LIFE OF 

" TO HENRY LAURENS, PREs't., ETC. 

" Princeton, 9th October, 1778 
" Dear Sir, 
" Our Assembly being dissolved by th'e constitu- 
tion, and the act constituting our Council of Safety 
expired by its own limitation, I stand some chance 
of seeing my family at last, and perhaps the devil 
and the tories may so manage their cards at the 
ensuing election that I may have no avocation to 
leave it in future. I am much more pleased 
wit h the old man ^s drea m amended^ thnn T was with 
'^J'v*^ the orig inal, and the conclus io n I hke extremely .^ 
^^■/A J 7/^ With great delicacy to Congress, and putting a 
, * ■ ;* ' new plume in the cap of liberty, the old gentleman 
' must escape the censure of the most severe. 

Your Excellency has by this time seen (the last I 
know not whether I can say, considering that 
some people make more dying speeches than one, 
but) the second dying speech of the British com- 
missaries. Does not the very pomposity of the 
vellum, and the grandeur of the types and margin 
strongly operate towards your conversion.'' No! 
why then 1 am sure the matter will not. * * * 
Thanks to their Excellencies, however, for the 
quantity of waste paper with which they have fur- 
nished me under the denomination of proclama- 
tions, and the excellent tape which surrounded the 
packets ; of both which I stood in most lamenta- 
ble need. Conceiving that they would afford very 
little edification to the several bodiies in this State, 
civil, military, and ecclesiastical, to which they were 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 309 

directed, 1 have made prize of almost the whole 
cargo, without any lawful condemnation in the Ad- 
miralty, with felonious intent to convert them to my 
own private use. His majesty's arms, however (hav- 
ing in days of yore heard so much about the Lord's 
anointed), 1 shall carefiilly separate from the rest 
of the sheet, and apply to the embellishment of my 
little grandson's kite — and oh ! for the vellum origi- 
nal, signed and sealed with their Excellencies' own 
proper hands and seals, I'll certainly lay it up in ^ 

lavender, that if 1 am hanged at last, my latest ^ ^WT'-*^ 
posterity may know that it was through downright IJI^» i^^^t 
love of hanging, after having refused so gracious \Ci^%t^i!Cf, 
and unmerited a pardon on repentance, with so I // ^g,/- i 
grim frowning a lion at the top, denouncing the /' ^ 
royal vengeance in case of contumacy. • t io ^ 

" 1 am, dear sir, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

On the 31st of October,' Livingston was re- 
elected Governor by thirty-one votes, General 
Dickinson receiving seven. 

" TO THE BARON VAN DER CAPELLEN, HOLLAND. 

« Trenton, 30th Nov., 1778. 
" Sir, 
" Having the greatest reason to believe that the 
Dutch nation, as well as the rest of Europe, has 
been most egregiously deluded by the artifices and 
misrepresentations of the Enghsh emissaries, re- 
specting the contest between Great Britain and 



310 THE LIFE OF 

America, I could not refrain from embracing so 

favourable an opportunity as that which is now 

presented me by Col. Dirck's return to Holland 

(who leaves a very favourable character behind), 

to address you on that important subject. What 

has imboldened me thus to obtrude myself upon 

you without introduction is, the honour and esteem 

you have acquired in America, by your spirited 

speech on that memorable occasion, when you ap- 

. ^ peared the only friend of injured innocence, and 

*^^^' •'* 'the only advocate for persecuted liberty." 
^>>#%^ ,^ * * # * * 

\ *A*^^v>^ Governor Livingston gives a short sketch of the 
* ' contest in America, and then proceeds. 
» » ^ . " Ours was really an opposition justified by the 
' * principles of self defence, entered into with the 
•greatest reluctance, and sanctioned by the most 
unavoidable necessity. It was seriously, it was 
conscientiously entered into. Nor was it stimu- 
lated by the arts and influence of any popular 
leaders (as our enemies affect to represent the 
matter), but originated from the people at large, 
and at once, who, as a certain historian describes 
them upon another occasion, omnes confluxere quasi 
ad extinguendum commune incendium. It was the 
people who rendered it unpopular, and even dan- 
gerous for men of rank and fortune not to join, to 
assist, and to serve them in the defence of their 
liberties. And those whom our enemies call the 
leaders of the people are in reality no other than 
men appointed by the people (from a persuasion 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 311 

of their superior abilities), to manage the public 
affairs, and whose offices are determinable by the 
same authority which bestowed them ; and many 
of whom would rather have been excused from 
encountering the danger and the trouble to which 
they exposed themselves. This, sir, you may de- 
pend upon as fact, and of this you are at liberty to 
avail yourself as occasion may require in the most 
public manner. * * * 

"There is another deception, sir, into which 
many gentlemen of Europe have been led by the 
artifices of the British ministry, and thereby discour- 
aged from giving that countenance to the cause of 
America which their love' of liberty and indignation 
against wanton oppression would otherwise prompt 
them to give. 1 mean that a reverse of fortune dur- 
ing the war will induce us to surrender our inde- 
pendence, and submit to our old master ! As it is 
impossible for mortal ken to penetrate the womb of 
futurity, it is impossible for us certainly to know that 
such an event will never take place. But of all the 
improbabilities in the world, it is one of the most 
improbable ; and I should as soon persuade myself 
that we shall in some future period of time surren- 
der ourselves the willing slaves to the emperor of 
Morocco or Japan. The spirit of the Americans 
is inflexible, their resources are inexhaustible, their 
aversion to the British monarchy is irreconcila- 
ble, their army numerous and well discipHned, and 
their several political constitutions the idol of the 
people, and calculated to perpetuate freedom to 



312 THE LIFE OF 

the remotest generations. Besides all this, their 
struggle is, to all human appearances, near its close, 
with the fairest prospect of final triumph. Now, 
sir, is the time, if haply not already elapsed, for 
Holland, once the scourge of tyrants and the 
asserter of liberty, to avail herself of a share of 
the emoluments of our commerce, by showing her 
affection for a people whose sufferings have been 
so similar to her own, and whose national glory 
will shortly not be inferior. 

" If the present opportunity is neglected, the 
time may come when their high mightinesses shall 
wish they had, at least, been the second power in 
Europe that acknowledged the independence of 
America. 

" From my affection for het Vaderland (political 
considerations apart), I could wish for a friendly con- 
nexion between the old and the new Netherlands, 
being by parentage at least three-quarters of a 
Dutchman myself But 1 hope neither of us are 
moved by such accidental distinctions, and partial 
inducements, but are possessed of hearts capable 
of embracing all mankind, and sympathising with 
every part of the human species that groans under 
the iron rod of tyranny, in every region of the 
globe. If by any of the preceding facts (upon 
which you may depend as indubitable truths), I 
should be instrumental in removing any prejudices 
which you may have imbibed against America, by 
the misrepresentation of its adversaries ; or if I 
should have furnished you with any hints which 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 313 

may tend either to your entertainment or use, I 
shall think myself most happy. 

*4& ^ ^£. ^ •)£• 

■«• Tr "Tr vv* Tp 

" I have the honour to be, sir, 
" With the greatest esteem and respect, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

Of the person to whom the preceding letter was 
addressed, Mrs. Warren thus speaks.* 

" None of the principal characters among the Ba- 
tavians were more zealously interested in the suc- 
cess of the American struggle for independence than 
Robert Jasper Van der Capellen, Lord of Marsch. 
This Worthy Dutchman, as early as December, 
1778, had solicited a correspondence with several 
of the most prominent characters in America. 
He was a zealous supporter of the American 
claims, and predisposed many of his countrymen 
to unite cordially with them, and enter into trea- 
ties of amity and commerce previous to the arri- 
val of a minister at the Hague." 

Mrs. Warren apparently confounds Robert Jas- 
per with Johan Dirk,t his uncle, who answers ex- 
actly to the above description. He is mentioned 
by BelshamJ as zealously opposing the British in- 

* Hist. Am. War, ed. 1805, chap. xvii. pp. 273-4. 

t The entire address of this nobleman as it stands in Gov. 
Livmgston's letter-book, is as follows — " Johan Dirk, Baron van 
der Capellen, Seigneur de Pol, Membre du Corps des Nobles 
d'Overyssel a Zwol dans les Provinces Unies." 

X Vol. iii. p. 420. 

H R 



314 THE LIFE OF 

terest in the States General, prior to the war be- 
tween Holland and that country ; and the following 
extract from the reply to the above letter, may be 
found interesting, as throwing hght upon the char- 
acter of this public-spirited man. 

" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

" Amsterdam, 6th July, 1779. 

" Though 1 have already taken up too much of 
your Excellency's attention, 1 must be indiscreet 
enough to occupy it a moment longer with a word 
concerning my own situation. 1 have taken the 
liberty to give Governor Trumbull a short account 
of the unprecedented manner in which my enemies 
have endeavoured to drive me from the govern- 
ment. Your Excellency must permit me to send 
herewith a printed statement of every thing that 
concerns me : an unknown friend having done me 
the honour to think that my expulsion might be 
interesting to posterity, has collected under the 
title of Capellen Regent^ in the order of time, all 
the events relating to it * * * What relates 
to the Droosten Diensten begins at page 54, and the 
following may serve to elucidate the subject. 

" The government in the province of Overyssel 
is composed of the body of knights (into which 
every nobleman of ancient descent, provided he 
possess the requisite age and property, is ad- 
mitted), and the magistrates of three cities. The 
knights have one-half of the votes, and the cities 
the other half, for the assembly of the States. The 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 315 

nobles are members of the diet {Landdage)^ by 
right of birth, but the magistrates of the cities 
are appointed every year by the Prince of Orange 
as hereditary stadtholder, according to his pleasure. 
The stadtholder disposes of all civil and military 
offices. The principal posts out of the cities, in 
the Low Countries, can be filled only by noblemen. 
Among the persons holding these offices there are 
five who administer justice in the Low Countries, 
who execute the laws, and are at the same time 
members, yes, and principal members of the 
States General, which is with us the highest 
legislative authority. 

" These five are called Droosten, and exercise 
a very extensive sway over the inhabitants, who 
in former times were compelled to serve these 
Droosten two days in the year with all manner of 
service, as slaves. This custom was aboHshed in 
1631, but it was afterwards revived, though the 
salaries of these officers had been greatly in- 
creased, with an understanding that they would 
not exact the service of the people. The city of 
Zwol, in the year 1766, made a further effi^rt to 
free its inhabitants from this yoke; this proving 
unsuccessful, I espoused the cause of my oppressed 
fellow-citizens with more ardent sympathy, as may 
be found by my speech (page 77). The result 
was, that the knighthood of two cities becoming 
outrageous, instituted legal proceedings against 
me, and in the mean time have, viafacti^ excluded 
me firom the Diet. 



316 THE LIFE OP 

" Upon this I addressed myself to the prince, as 
stadtholder and head of the judiciary, but to no 
purpose. My opponents now changed their mode 
of attack, and said no more of judicial proceedings, 
in which they had no hopes of success ; but my 
lord the stadtholder proposed, and the knight- 
hood immediately assented to the proposition, 
that the only question submitted for adjudication 
should be, what amount of satisfaction I should 
give to be restored to the government. In oppo- 
sition to this I presented a memoir, not yet 
printed, and which I shall take the liberty of 
sending to your Excellency, wherein I urged, in 
the strongest terms, that my accusers should 
commence a suit against me, which I might defend 
according to law, and that the decision of an 
impartial judge should bind both parties ; but this 
was a favour 1 could not obtain. They refused 
me the privilege, not denied even to a malefactor, 
viz. to be judged according to the laws of the 
land. — In one word, I am excluded from all share 
in the government. 

"The efforts which I am still making to be 
restored to my share of it, arise only from a sense 
of honour. Formerly I had the happiness to lead 
a quiet, obscure, and private life ; but for the last 
seven years I have experienced all the bitterness 
of pubhc contests, and a fish cannot long for the 
water more than I desire to make my retreat from 
the political world in a becoming manner, and to 
spend the rest of my life (being now forty years 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 317 

old) free from all tumult. The only wish I form 
is to do this in happy America, but alas, this my 
situation forbids. 1 hope yet to visit that fortunate 
country, but the pleasure of making it my abode 
is denied me. If 1 can serve it with my tongue or 
pen, be assured, sir, that I shall omit no opportu- 
nity of so doing. A specimen of these efforts may 
be found in Doctor Price's preface to the edition 
of my translated works. 

«The opinion of the nation, concerning my 
removal from the government, may be seen in 
the pamphlets sent herewith; the indignation on 
the subject of the treatment I have received is 
incredible. 

" 1 have, &c. &c. 

" J. D. Van der Capellen."* 

In a subsequent letter, this true-hearted Hol- 
lander exclaims, " May the good God grant that 
the efforts to bind America and our republic 
together as sisters may succeed, and the counsels 
of the traitors who endeavour to prevent it may 
be brought to nought." 

* The original of this letter is in Dutch, and errors may have 
crept into the translation, for which I am indebted to a friend, 
from the unfamiliarity of the subject, which would not have been 
committed by one more acquainted with the intricate internal 
structure of the government of the Netherlands. 



318 THE LIFE OF 

CHAPTER IX. 

1779 — Extracts from Governor Livingston's Correspondence — 
February — Attack upon his house — Letters from Hamilton 
and Washington — 1780 — May — British Orders for capture of 
Governor Livingston — Incursion of the Enemy into New- 
Jersey — Attack upon Livingston's house — His insufficient 
Salary — Letters. 

The loss of nearly all Governor Livingston's 
correspondence belonging to 1779, compels me to 
continue the mode adopted in my narrative of the 
preceding year. The following letter well exhibits 
the resolute spirit which had defied the previous 
hardships of the arduous contest, as yet far from a 
close. It is addressed to the correspondent whose 
name has already occurred on these pages. 

" TO THE REV. MR. CHAUNCEY WHITTELSEY. 

" Elizabethtown, January 1st, 1779. 
" Dear Sir, 
"I have received your kind letter of the 10th of 
last month, accompanying a copy of your election 
sermon, for which 1 return my hearty thanks, 
and upon which I set a particular value, as well on 
account of my friendship for the author, as the 
intrinsic merit of the composition itself Happy, 
sir, thrice happy should I be to have my adminis- 
tration answer your devout wish expressed in the 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 319 

sublime language of your text! It is indeed a 
critical time, and it requires uncommon abilities and 
address to discharge an office of such importance 
and so great confidence, with proper activity and 
prudence, much greater, beyond question, than 1 
can pretend to be master of But I have in so re- 
markable a manner been supported from above 
through a more laborious scene of business than 
my constitution was equal to in the prime and vig- 
our of my life ; and been preserved from so many 
dangers both from intestine and foreign enemies, 
to which my station, and the opinion they were 
pleased to entertain of my consequence to our 
cause, constantly exposed me, that I should think 
myself worse than an infidel not to acknowledge the 
conspicuous finger of Heaven, or to be unimpressed 
with a deep sense of God's gracious assistance 
and superintending Providence. I have been ena- 
bled to despatch more business for the two years 
last past, than ever 1 did before in double the time, 
with the advantage of all the strength and vivacity 
of youth (when yet I did not think myself an indo- 
lent man), and that without a moment's bodily in- 
disposition or lassitude, and with an almost unin- 
terrupted flow of spirits ; and all this amidst the 
deprivation of a thousand of those comforts and 
conveniences which long habit had taught me to 
consider as the necessaries of hfe, without being 
in the least affected with the loss. But it is high 
time, sir, to apologize for so much egotism, which 
I assure you nothing could have extorted fi-om me 



320 THE LIFE OF 

but the strong obligafion 1 feel of recounting, upon 
all proper occasions, such manifest proofs of the 
Divine goodness, and the pleasure which I pre- 
sume from our former connexion (and I hope our 
present friendship), you will participate with me in 
the grateful recollection. 

" I hope the scoundrels will not pester us with 
another campaign ; but if they are incorrigibly de- 
termined by continuing to war against us, to war 
against common sense, and every maxim of sound 
policy, until they plunge themselves into irremedi- 
able ruin, j^«^. 1 believe the spirit of America is as 
inflexible, and the aversion to British tyranny as 
irreconcileable as ever ; and I doubt not the same 
strong hand and outstretched arm that hath con- 
ducted us thus far, will lead us to complete and 
final triumph. They have, from very probable ac- 
counts, taken 30 Dutch vessels bound to the West 
Indies, with French manufactures, which I hope 
will inspire their high mightinesses with too much 
resentment to be douceured with compliments, or 
to be stifled by three pair of Dutch breeches. 

" I wish you, my dear sir, many happy years, 
and a most successful ministry — I shall always be 
glad to hear of your welfare, and not a httle proud 
of your correspondence ; and am, with the most 
sincere respect, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

The following letter is from the subject of this 
Memoir to his nephew. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 321 

" TO WALTER LIVINGSTON. 

" Elizabethtown, 2d January, 1779. 
" Dear Sir, 

"It is but a few days since I had the pleasure of 
receiving yours of the 20th of November. * * 

" Should the passing a law of the like import by 
your State be attended with the consequences you 
seem to apprehend, it would doubtless be most 
advisable to defer the measure ; but of the proba- 
bility of such an event I do not pretend to be a 
competent judge. The scoundrels have, however, 
shown themselves capable of actions still more 
atrocious and infernal. For our act, at least for 
the substance of it, I was an advocate. But the 
circumstances of the two States are not altogether 
similar. In the instance you mention, in which 
you are certainly exposed to peculiar destruction, 
they differ greatly. But to give any explicit 
opinion on the subject, I have particular reasons 
for declining, or I should do it with great alacrity. 

" Remember me very affectionately to your good 
father, and tell him that I was most inexpressibly 
rejoiced to hear that he so manfully resisted the 
solicitations of some of his pretended friends, who, 
from the influence which they flattered themselves 
they had over him, attempted to take the advan- 
tage of his declining years, and seduce him into a 
compliance with the terms of the British procla- 
mation, for which they deserve to have their 
throats cut. Had they succeeded in their infa- 
mous manoeuvre, such an inglorious dereliction of 

s s 



322 THE LIFE OF 

the common cause by the head of the family 
would have pierced me to the heart; and dis- 
tressed me more than any disaster that ever befell 
me. 1 hope the thieves will evacuate New-York 
before next spring, and not protract their uncon- 
scionable incivility of debarring one from a dish 
of fryed oysters. With my compliments to cozin 
Livingston, 

, ■. "1 am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

The blended respect and affection with which 
the writer of the above letter refers to his brother 
Robert, the proprietor of the manor, as ' the head 
of the family,' is a striking specimen of the 
peculiar feelings sometimes resulting from the 
estabhshment of primogeniture, and which we 
frequently see strongly illustrated in that citadel 
and bulwark of by-gone theories, the English 
aristocracy. 

About this time occurred one of those circum- 
stances which sometimes so curiously diversify 
the aspect of the ' horrid front' of war. On the 
28th of February, a party of British troops from 
New-York landed at Elizabethtown-point, under 
the command of Colonel Stirling; their objects 
being to take Governor Livingston, whom they 
expected to find at his residence ; and to surprise 
the force under Brigadier-general Maxwell, sta- 
tioned in the village. Dividing their numbers 
accordingly, one detachment burst at the dead of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 323 

night into Liberty Hall, crying out for ' the damned 
rebel Governor !' Livingston had, however, very 
fortunately left home some hours before, and was 
at this time sleeping at a friend's house a few 
miles distant. 

After ascertaining positively that he was not in 
the house, the British officer demanded his papers. 
All his recent correspondence with Congress, 
Washington, and the state officers, which would 
have proved a valuable prize, was in the box of 
his sulky, standing in the parlor. His daughter, 
however, with great presence of mind, appealed to 
the officer as a gentleman and soldier, represented 
to him that the box contained her private pro- 
perty, and that if it were protected she would 
show him what he wished. A guard being accord- 
ingly placed over it, the men were led into the 
library, where they filled their foraging bags with 
old law papers of no value. After many menaces 
of violence and threats of setting fire to the house, 
they finally departed, without securing the only 
plunder which would have rewarded their eflforts. 
Joining the other division of their force, which had 
been equally baffled in its object, they burned one 
or two houses in the village, and then fell back to 
New- York. 

With reference to this predatory invasion. Gov- 
ernor Livingston addressed a letter to Sir Henry 
Clinton, then commanding at New-York, and the 
answer of the British officer drew forth a reply. 
This correspondence was pubhshed, and may be 



324 THE LIFE OP 

found in the gazettes of the day. Chnton's share 
of it affords a striking instance of that arrogance 
and insolence which marked the bearing of the 
EngUsh civil and mihtary agents during the war, 
and is the counterpart of that conduct which in 
later days has done so much to alienate the affec- 
tions of Americans from the channel which they 
would naturally seek. Thus ignorance and ill- 
nature become truly formidable, and thus great 
nations are compelled to atone for the sins of 
paltry individuals. 

To this period also belongs an incident which 
is so strongly illustrative of the character of sev- 
eral of the agents of the revolution, that I cannot 
refrain from allotting to it considerable space. 
Some ladies residing in New-York, friends and rela- 
tives of Governor Livingston's family, applied to his 
daughter to use her influence with her father to ob- 
tain for them leave to pass a short time" with her in 
New-Jersey. Miss Livingston knowing her father's 
rules on this subject, and well aware of his inflexi- 
bility to such applications, "addressed herself to 
Alexander Hamilton, then an aid-de-camp of Gen- 
eral Washington, with a request that he would 
procure the requisite permission from the com- 
mander-in-chief To this apphcation Hamilton 
returned the following answer. 

" TO MISS LIVINGSTON. 

" 1 can hardly forgive an application to my hu- 
manity, to induce me to exert my influence in an 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 325 

affair in which ladies are concerned; and espe- 
cially when you are of the party. Had you ap- 
pealed to my friendship, or to my gallantry, it 
would have been irresistible. I should have 
thought myself bound to have set prudence and 
poUcy at defiance, and even to have attacked wind- 
mills in your ladyship's service. I am not sure, but 
my imagination would have gone so far as to have 
fancied New-York an enchanted castle — the three 
ladies so many fair damsels ravished from their 
friends, and held in captivity by the spells of some 
wicked magician — General Clinton a huge giant, 
placed as keeper of the gates, and myself a valor- 
ous knight, destined to be their champion and 
deliverer. 

" But when, instead of availing yourself of so 
much better titles, you appealed to the cold, gen- 
eral principle of humanity, I confess I felt myself 
mortified, and determined, by way of revenge, to 
mortify you in turn. I resolved to show you, that 
all the eloquence of your fine pen could not tempt 
our Fabius to do wrong ; and avoiding any repre- 
sentation of my own, 1 put your letter into his 
hands, and let it speak for itself 1 knew, indeed, 
this would expose his resolution to a severer trial 
than it could experience in any other way, and 1 
was not without my fears for the event ; but if 
it should decide against you, I anticipated the 
triumph of letting you see your influence had 
failed. 

" I congratulate myself on the success of my 



326 THE LIFE OF 

scheme ; for though there was a harder struggle 
upon the occasion, between incHnation and duty, 
than it would be for his honour to tell ; yet he at 
last had the courage to determine, that as he could 
not indulge the ladies with consistency and propri- 
ety, he would not run the risk of being charged with 
a breach of both. This he desired me to tell you, 
though, to be sure, it was done in a different man- 
ner, interlarded with many assurances of his great 
desire to oblige you, and of his regret that he 
could not do it in the present case, with a deal of 
stuff of the same kind, which I have too good an 
opinion of your understanding to repeat. 

" I shall therefore only tell you, that whether the 
governor and the general are more honest, or more 
perverse, than other people, they have a very odd 
knack of thinking alike; and it happens in the 
present case, that they both equally disapprove the 
intercourse you mention, and have taken pains to 
discourage it. I shall leave you to make your own 
reflections upon this, with only one more observa- 
tion, which is, that the ladies for whom you apply 
would have every claim to be gratified, were it not 
that it would operate as a bad precedent. 

" But before I conclude, it will be necessary to 
explain one point. This refusal supposes that the 
ladies mean only to make a visit and return to 
New-York. If it should be their intention to re- 
main with us, the case will be altered. There will 
be no rule against their coming out, and they will 
be an acquisition. But this is subject to two pro- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 327 

visos — 1st, that they are not found guilty of trea- 
son, or any misdemeanor, punishable by the laws 
of the State, in which case the general can have 
no power to protect them ; and, 2dly, that the ladies 
on our side do not apprehend any inconvenience 
from increasing their number. 

" Trifling apart, there is nothing could give me 
greater pleasure than to have been able to serve 
Miss Livingston and her friends on this occasion, but 
circumstances really did not permit it. I am per- 
suaded she has too just an opinion of the general's 
politeness not to be convinced that he would be 
happy to do any thing which his public character 
would justify, in an affair so interesting to the ten- 
der feelings of so many ladies. The delicacy of 
her own ideas will easily comprehend the delicacy 
of his situation — she knows the esteem of her 
friend, 

"A. Hamilton. 

" The general and Mrs. Washington present 
their compliments. 

"Head-quarters, March 18th'." 

About this time I find Governor Livingston con- 
tributing, under the signature of Hortentius, to the 
United States Magazine, published by Hugh Brack- 
enridge, at Philadelphia. But not long subsequent 
to this period, several members of the Legislature 
expressing their dissatisfaction that the chief 
magistrate of the State should contribute to the 
periodicals, he discontinued his communications 



328 THE LIFE OF 

altogether, and appears to have written nothing 
for the press for several years. 

" TO MR. ANTHONY BLEECKER. 

"Trenton, 1st May, 1779. 
" Sir, 
" I enclose you one dozen fish-hooks, and should 
have strictly pursued your orders as an honest fac- 
tor, by sending you three dozen as per invoice, 
but that they are advanced to the abominable 
price of half a dollar a-piece. Indeed I was almost 
deterred from buying any, but that I thought you 
and the other gentlemen fishers would not choose 
to be totally debarred from the sport for the sake 
of a few dollars, especially as you can sell your 
trout at a proportionable advance. 

" 1 have no news to write you, but that about 
70 of our militia have drove between 6 and 800 
British troops from Middletown, quite to their 
boats ; and the latter never pretended to make a 
stand, except by just facing about on every advan- 
tageous spot, and giving one volley, and then again 
prosecuting their flight. 

" We have hitherto proceeded so slowly in our 
legislative capacity, that I fear we shall sit out all 
the trouting season ; but 1 must give our Assem- 
bly one huzza for having voted a tax of a round 
million, not of dollars, sir, but fair honest pounds 
of twenty shillings to the pound. With my com- 
pliments to Mrs. Bleecker, 

" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 329 

FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

"Head-quarters, Middle Brook, > 
4th May, 1779. i 

" Dear Sir, 

" I have received the honour of your two letters, 
both of the 1st instant. 

" 1 have generally been so happy as to agree 
with your Excellency in sentiment on pubhc mea- 
sures ; but an instance now occurs, in which there 
happens to be a difference of opinion. 1 am 
extremely apprehensive that very disagreeable 
consequences may result from an increase of the 
standing pay of the militia. It would create an 
additional cause of discontent to the soldiery, who 
would naturally draw a comparison between their 
situation and that of the militia ; and would think 
it very hard and unjust that these should receive 
for temporary services a greater reward than they 
for permanent ones. This would occasion disgust 
and desertion, if not mutiny, among those already 
in the army ; and would be a new discouragement 
to others from entering into it. The only remedy 
would be to augment the pay of the soldiery to an 
equal sum, and the like must be done in the other 
States to their militia. The addition of public 
expense would then|be excessive, and the decay of 
our credit and currency proportional. 

" Your Excellency will agree with me that every 
step should be carefully avoided which has a 
tendency to dissatisfy the army, already too little 
pleased with its condition, and to weaken our 

T T 



330 THE LIFE OP 

military establishment, already too feeble, and 
requiring every prop our circumstances will afford 
to keep it from falling into ruin ! 

" I should imagine the militia of the country is 
to be drawn out by the authority of the govern- 
ment, rather than by the pecuniary reward attached 
to their service ; if the former is not sufficient, the 
latter I apprehend will be found ineffectual. To 
make the compensation given to the militia an 
inducement of material weight, it must be raised 
so high as to bear a proportion to what they 
might obtain by their labour in their civil occupa- 
tions ; and in our case to do this, it must be 
raised so high as, I fear, 'to exceed the utmost 
stretch of our finances. 

" But if it is thought indispensable to increase 
the emoluments of service, in order to bring out 
the miUtia, it will be best to do it by a bounty 
rather than a fixed monthly pay. This would not 
be quite so palpable, nor strike the minds of the 
army with the same degree of force. But even 
this is a delicate point, and I have uniformly 
thought the large bounties which have been given 
in State enlistments, and to the militia, have been 
a very fertile source of evils, and an almost irre- 
parable injury to the service.- j|^ 

"I have taken the liberty to. communicate my 
sentiments on this subject with great freedom to 
your Excellency, as it appears to me a matter of 
extreme importance; and as 1 have the most 
entire confidence in your candour and firiendship. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 331 

If my objections do not appear valid, you will at 
least ascribe them to their proper motives. 1 
shall, agreeable to your Excellency's wish, continue 
the troops, or the principal part of them, at their 
present stations, as long as it can be done without 
interfering with the main object. I believe it will 
be a few days beyond the period hmited in my 
former letter. ***** 

" From the general complexion of the intelli- 
gence from England, and from that of the minis- 
ter's speech, of which I have seen some extracts 
in a New-York paper of the 1st instant, there is 
in my opinion the greatest reason to believe, that 
a vigorous prosecution of the war is determined 
on; considerable reinforcements have been fre- 
quently mentioned as coming over to Sir Henry 
Clinton. This by many is discredited; but to me 
it appears so probable as to demand our most 
serious attention. While England can procure 
money she will be able to procure men, and while 
she can maintain a balance of naval power, she 
may spare a considerable part of those men to 
carry on the war here. The measures adopted 
by Parhament some time since, for recruiting the 
army, were well calculated to succeed ; and the in- 
formation we have received justifies the belief that 
it has been attended with no small success. 
Under these circumstances prudence exacts that we 
should make proportionable exertions on our part; 
and I assure your Excellency the situation of our 
army demands them. I am sorry to find our pros- 



332 THE LIFE OF 

pects of a reinforcement are extremely slender. 
The Virginia levies intended for this quarter are 
now of necessity ordered to the southward ; few of 
the States have as yet done any thing that has 
come to my knowledge towards augmenting their 
battalions. This discouraging aspect of things 
justifies no small degree of anxiety and alarm. 
I confess, my feelings upon the subject are painful. 
I am persuaded, sir, you will be ready to promote 
every measure which may be found practicable for 
completing the battalions of this State, and I beg 
leave to recommend the matter to the most par- 
ticular attention. 

" With every sentiment of regard, 
" 1 am, dear sir, yours, &;c. 

" Go. Washington." 

" TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

"Trenton, 8th May, 1779. 
« Dear Sir, 
" I have received the honour of your Excel- 
lency's favour of the 4th instant, and am very far 
from differing with you in sentiment 'that the 
militia of the country should be drawn out by the 
authority of the government, rather than by the pe- 
cuniary reward attached to their service.' This 
has always been my opinion, and 1 have used my 
utmost exertions to get our mihtia upon that foot- 
ing ; but it is a matter rather to be wished than ex- 
pected, as our Legislature have uniformly mani- 
fested a disinclination to use any compulsion. And 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 333 

when it is considered that the five shilHngs per day 
which they have added to the pay of the miUtia, 
is not equal to what they have lately done for the 
standing troops, 1 flatter myself that it will not 
be attended with the disagreeable consequences 
which your Excellency apprehends. The truth is, 
that the militia have of late been so extremely 
backward to come out in the monthly service, that 
without some addition to their past allowance, 
it was universally apprehended that our frontiers 
would be* entirely left to the mercy of the enemy ; 
but for the reason your Excellency assigns, I wish 
it had been by way of bounty, instead of augmen- 
tation of wages. 

" The confidence your Excellency is pleased to 
place in my friendship affects me with inexpressi- 
ble pleasure. I hope, sir, you will never have rea- 
son to think it misplaced ; and your friendship in 
return, which indeed so bought is too cheap a pur- 
chase, I shall always consider as the greatest feli- 
city of my life. The communication of your sen- 
timents in the freest manner, upon any public 
measures, I shall not only esteem an honor done 
me, as a convincing mark of your confidence, but 
shall ever endeavour to improve them to the pub- 
lic emolument, which I am sure will be the only 
motive which suggests them. 

" Our political stupor and security, owing to our 
last year's successful campaign, or thirst for the 
mammon of unrighteousness, is truly lamentable, 
and I am entirely of your Excellency's opinion that 



334 THE LIFE OP 

there is the greatest reason to believe, that a vig* 
orous prosecution of the war is determined on 
the part of the enemy. The slowness of our pro- 
gress towards completing our quota of your rein- 
forcements affects me with unspeakable chagrin; 
and I can assure your Excellency, that I do not 
lose a day without exerting myself to accelerate 
the motions of some gentlemen, who ought not to 
want a prompter to that indispensable measure. 

" With every sentiment of esteem I have the 
honor to be, dear sir, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

"May22d, 1779. 
" Sir, 
" The situation of our affairs at this period 
appears to me peculiarly critical; and this, I 
fiatter myself, will apologize for that anxiety which 
impels me to take the liberty of addressing you on 
the present occasion. The state of the army in 
particular is alarming on several accounts ; that 
of its numbers is not among the least. Our 
battalions are exceedingly reduced, not only from 
the natural decay incident to the best composed 
armies ; but from the expiration of the term of ser- 
vice for which a large proportion of the men were 
engaged. The measures heretofore taken to re- 
place them, so far as has come to my knowledge, 
have been attended with very partial success, and 
I am ignorant of any others in contemplation that 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 335 

aflford a better prospect. A reinforcement, ex- 
pected from Virginia, consisting of new levies 
and re-enlisted men, is necessarily ordered to the 
southward. 

" Not far short of one-third of our whole force 
must be detached on a service undertaken by 
the direction of Congress, and essential to the 
interests of these States. I shall only say of what 
remains, that when it is compared with the force 
of the enemy, now actually at New- York and 
Rhode Island, and the succours they will in all 
probability receive from England, at the lowest 
computation, it will be found to justify very serious 
apprehensions, and to demand the zealous atten- 
tion of the different Legislatures. 

"When we consider the rapid decline of our 
currency, the general temper of the times, the 
disaffection of a great part of the people, the 
lethargy that benumbs the rest, the increasing 
danger that threatens the southern States, we 
cannot but dread the consequences of any mis- 
fortune in this quarter ; and must feel the impolicy 
of trusting our security to the precarious hope of 
a want of enterprise and activity in the enemy. 

" An expectation of peace, and an opinion of 
the enemy's inability to send more troops to this 
country, 1 fear, have had too powerful an influence 
upon our affairs. 1 have heard of nothing con- 
clusive to authorize the former, and present 
appearances are in my opinion against it. The 
accounts we receive from Europe uniformly an- 



336 



THE LIFE OF 



nounce vigorous preparations to continue the war 
at least another campaign. The debates and 
proceedings in Parhament wear this complexion. 
The pubhc papers speak confidently of large rein- 
forcements destined for America. The minister 
in his speech asserts positively that reinforcements 
will be sent over to Sir Henry Clinton, though he 
acknowledges the future plan of the war will be 
more contracted than the past. Let it be supposed 
that the intended succours will not exceed five 
thousand men, it is unnecessary they should be 
more, if the strength of the enemy be well-directed 
and our situation not materially altered for the 
better. 

"These considerations, and many more that 
might be added, point to the necessity of taking 
every step in our power to complete our battalions 
without delay, and to make our military force 
more respectable. I thought it my duty to give 
an idea of our true situation, and to urge the 
attention of the States to a matter in which their 
security and happiness are so essentially inter- 
ested. 1 hope my concern for the public safety will 
be admitted as the motive and excuse for my 
importunity. 

" There is one point which I beg leave to men- 
tion also ; the want of system, which has prevailed 
in the clothiers' department, has been a source of 
innumerable evils. Defective supplies, irregular 
issues, great waste and loss to the public, general 
discontent in the army, much confusion and per- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 337 

plexity, and an additional load of business to the 
officers commanding, make but a part of them. I 
have for a long time past most ardently desired to 
see a reformation. Congress, by a resolve of the 
23d of March, has established an ordinance for 
regulating this department. According to this, 
there is a sub or state clothier to be appointed by 
each State. I know not what instructions may 
have been given relative to these appointments ; 
but if the matter now rests with the particular 
States, 1 take the liberty to press their completion 
without loss of time. The service suffers ama- 
zingly for want of order and regularity in this 
department, and the regulations for it cannot 
possibly be too soon carried into execution. 
" I have the honour to be, &c. 

"Go. Washington." 

"to miss CATHARINE LIVINGSTON, IN PHILADELPHIA. 

« Raritan, 9th August, 1779. 
" Dear Caty, 

#4C. ^U. ^A. .JA. J£. 

•rt* TT- -Vl- VT T^ 

"The complaisance with which we treat the 

British prisoners, considering how they treat us 

when in captivity, of which you justly complain, is 

what the Congress can never- answer to their 

constituents, however palhated with the specious 

name of humanity. It is thus that we shall at 

last be humanized out of our liberties. Their 

country, their honour, the spirits of those myriads 

who have fallen a sacrifice to the severity of their 

uu 



338 THE LIFE OF 

treatment by the enemy, and their own solemn 
oath, call upon that august assembly to retaliate 
without farther procrastination. 

" 1 know there are a number of flirts in Phila- 
delphia, equally famed for their want of modesty 
as want of patriotism, who will triumph in our 
over-complaisance to the red-coat prisoners lately 
arrived in that metropolis. I hope none of my 
connexions will imitate them, either in the dress 
of their heads or the still more tory feelings of 
their hearts. * * * 

" 1 am, your aftectionate father, 

"WiL. Livingston." 

The "odd knack of thinking alike" of which 
Hamilton speaks in a preceding letter, with re- 
ference to Washington and Governor Livingston, I 
find verified on the subject of retaUatory measures 
upon the British. The imprisonment of Asgill, 
and the execution of Andre, afibrd indeed signal 
instances of the opinions of the commander-in- 
chief on this subject. 

" TO MR. JOSHUA WALLACE. i 

"Mount-Holly, 9th November, 1779. 

"Dear Sir, . 

" If I could send you any news, I should do it 

with pleasure; and to make it, you know, is the 

prerogative of Mr. Rivington. * * * 

" My enemies have been so much disappointed 

at the last election for governor, that with all their 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 339 

groundless slanders, and the dirty libel they pub- 
lished against me, they could only muster 9 nega- 
tives to 29 affirmatives — I would not mention this, 
which is rather a personal concern of my own, 
were it not that 1 have of late had so much rea- 
son to consider myself as part of the family, that 
1 am vain enough to flatter myself that both you 
and Mrs. Wallace (to whom you will present my 
respects), take some share in my concerns. 

" Tell Master Joshua that 1 intend to kill a 
squirrel for him, as 1 touch at your house on my 
journey homewards, if the Assembly does not sit 
so long as to excite the British to send some Sim- 
coe* express to fetch me to New-York. 

" As to Master John, who is rather too young to 
comprehend a message, please to give him for me 
a kiss. 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

The following letter from Governor Livingston 
to his daughter in Philadelphia, refers to the re- 
cent departure of Mr. and Mrs. Jay, accompanied 
by his son Brockholst Livingston, for Spain, where 
the former gentleman had been sent in a diplo- 
matic capacity, and the latter attended him as his 
private secretary. 

• Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe had been despatched a short time 
before this from New- York to make an inroad into New-Jersey, 
and was I believe taken prisoner. 



340 THE LIFE OF 

" TO MI8S CAfHARINE LIVINGSTON. 

"Mount-Holly, 16th November, 1779. 
" Dear Catharine, 

^ vF Tf" tP ^ ^ 

" As we have not yet heard of the safe arrival 
of our friends on board of the Confederacy in the 
port of New-York, 1 hope they have got such an 
offing as to be out of the tract of the copper bot- 
toms. 1 am obhged to Mr. Morris for his promise 
of giving me the earhest intelHgence of their arrival 
in France. I hope his business with the four quar- 
ters of the globe will not efface it from his mem- 
ory. 1 have already suffered more anxiety on their 
account than I should have imagined 1 could be 
affected by on any account. The tenderness of a 
parent's heart can never be known till it is tried. 
The death of Mr. Hewes is a public loss. He was 
an honest man. A greater scarcity in these times 
than even hyson or double refined. 

" The enemy are collected in great force on 
Staten Island ; and if they don't burn my house, I 
shall think them still greater rascals than ever j as 
1 have really endeavoured to deserve that last and 
most luminous testimony of their inveterate mahce. 
They ought never to forgive a man for being faith- 
ful to his trust. But we are at present in such a situ- 
ation, that they cannot travel far into New-Jersey, 
nor stay twenty-four hours in it, without exposing 
themselves to a severe drubbing. * * * 

" I am, (fee. 

"WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, 341 



<* TO THE REV. DR. JOHN LIVINGSTON. 

" Mount-Holly (you -will never find it in 
any map), 34th November, 1779. 
** Dear Sir, 



" Baron Van der Capellen's letter to me con- 
tains very important intelligence respecting the 
disposition von het Vaderland towards the cause of 
America, and the "most proper measures to be 
adopted for establishing our interest in that repub- 
hc. Of this the Congress might very essentially 
avail themselves if they would abandon their little 
party attachments, and instead of spending their 
time about trifles, apply themselves in serious ear- 
nest to business. 

" 1 am exceedingly happy to learn from Van 
der Capellen's letter, that one of mine to him con- 
taining a true state of our situation, and calcu- 
lated to remove all the prejudices which the Brit- 
ish agents were instilling into the minds of the 
Hollanders, and which he caused to be translated 
into Dutch (and which he caused to be dispersed 
through all the Seven Provinces), had a most as- 
tonishing eflect. It was indeed intended for the 
purpose of creating a political ferment among the 
mobility^ and you may be sure I did not forget to 
touch upon the glory of their ancestors in a simi- 
lar cause, and their having so long been the 
scourge of tyrants, and the assertors of liberty; 
nor, according to the advice of the logicians, re- 
serving the strongest argument for the last, did I 



342 THE LIFE OP 

forget to conclude with the argumentum ad Batavum, 
trade. 

" I am, with great esteem, dear sir, 

" WiL. Livingston." 

The Legislature of New-Jersey was at this time 
in session at Mount-Holly, in Burlington county, 
where they had removed, as Governor Livingston 
says, from considerations of economy, and the date 
of the preceding and a subsequent letter seems to 
refer to his vexation at his compulsory residence 
there.* 

" TO HENRY REMSEN. 

" Mount-Holly, (you will never find it in ) 
any map), 29th November, 1779. ) 
« Sir, 
" I am much obliged to you for your agreeable 
favour of the 19th. The intelligence 1 have from 
Baron Van der Capellen is, in general, very favour- 
able. But much will depend on Congress pursu- 
ing proper measures to engage the Dutch in our 
interest. They have been shamefully neglected, 
and in point of American intelhgence, have been 

* Before the revolution, Burlington was the residence of the 
governor of the State, the place where the Assembly sat, and 
the shire town of the county ; but after a long struggle for the 
doubtful honors of the jaU and court-house, the city of the 
Caesars yielded her supremacy, and Mount-Holly is now the 
metropolis of Burlington county. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 343 

kept in the profoundest ignorance. Congress may 
greatly avail themselves of some facts which I shall 
suggest to them from my illustrious correspond- 
ent, but then they must mind their business, and 
not enter into parties about the Deanes, the Lees, 
the Paines, and the devil knows what ! My re- 
spects to all the New-Yorkers in Morristown, who 
for their own sakes, and not mine, I really hope, 
and have reason to believe, will be restored to their 
native country by next spring. 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

" Morristown, 7th December, 1779. 
"Dear Sir, 

" You have both obhged and answered me by 
your communication of the 27th. 1 have not seen 
the piece to which you allude, but I should be 
much surprised had you been suffered to escape 
without paying a tax so ancient and customtiry. 
When one is overrated in this way, it is very natu- 
ral to complain or to feel disgust at the ingrati- 
tude of the world ; though I believe with you that 
to persevere in one's duty, and be silent, is the best 
answer to calumny. 

« We are all in your debt for what you have 
done for us in Holland. I would flatter myself 
from the reception of your correspondence, and 
the superior advantages which our commerce 
holds out to the Dutch, that we shall experience 



.»-»,rv 



344 THE LIFE OF 

in a little time the most favourable effects from 
this quarter. I know not how to think of the in- 
vention of Mr. Sayres. It appears a very extraor- 
dmary one. I can only wish that the thing may 
be practicable, and that we may have it in our 
power to be the first to give it patronage, and to 
profit by what it promises. 

"Your favour of the 1st, I had the honour to 
receive yesterday. We have taken up our quar- 
ters at this place for the winter. The main army 
lie within three or four miles of the town. If you 
are called to this part of the country, I hope you 
will do me the honour of a visit. 

" I am, dear sir, with great respect, &c. 
"Go. Washington." 

" TO W. C. HOUSTON, IN CONGRESS. 

"Mount-Holly, 13th December, 1779. 
"Dear Sir, 

"•As far as I am individually concerned in the 
publication of Mr. , to which you lately al- 
luded, or as far as I can suppose he was induced 
to insert the libel from any private animosity 
against me, I do not think it worth my notice, 
either as in the least injurious to my character, or 
as published by hina from motives of doing me 
personal prejudice. But I have for some time past 
suspected Mr. ''^^ 's whiggism, as wholly resolv- 
able into self-interest, and I cannot think that a real 
whig, and one so particularly acquainted as he is 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 345 

with my unremitted application to serve the pubUc, 
could have thought it his duty for a nameless au- 
thor to insert such a piece!7^In short, the man I. 
can easily forgive — but the tory never. 
" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

It is proper to state in reference to the person 
alluded to in the above letter, that Governor Liv- 
ingston was afterwards reconciled to him. 

Subsequent to the year 1779, the MSS. of Gov- 
ernor Livingston are more complete, and although 
less valuable and interesting than during the early 
period of the war, 1 shall let them occasionally 
speak for themselves. 

In the spring of the year 1780, Governor Living- 
ston, owing to the difficulty of giving to his chil- 
dren any proper education, during a period of 
general internal disorganization, and " from a view 
to the public interest, which requires our navy 
to be officered by the children of respectable 
families,*" procured for his youngest son, John 
Lawrence, a midshipman's commission, and en- 
tered him in the service of that establishment, 
destined at a later day to support the dignity and 
increase the reputation of the American name. 
The following is an extract from the directions 
given him by his father at their parting. 

* Letter to R. R. Livingston, 19th April, 1780. 
X X 



346 THE LIFE OF 

" DIRECTIONS TO SON JOHN LAWRENCE. 

" 19th April, 1780. 

* * ^ * vP V 

9. [It was at first intended that the young man 
should go out in a merchant vessel, preparatory to 
his entering into active service, and this section 
refers to this plan.] 

" When you are obliged to associate with the 
common mariners, I would have you act towards 
them with becoming famiharity and freedom, 
without assuming any airs of superiority on 
account of your connexions ; but * * * but 
1 would by no means have you enter into their 
vulgarisms and low-lived practices, for which they 
themselves will rather despise you ; and above all, 
that you most carefully avoid contracting that 
abominable custom, so common among seamen, 
of profaning the name of God by oaths and 
imprecations. 

****** 

11. " Whenever you lay in any port, inquire as 
you have time and opportunity into the following 
particulars respecting the country, viz. — 1, its 
soil and produce — 2, manufactures and trade — 3, 
government — 4, curiosities — 5, rehgion ; but par- 
ticularly into the principal articles of their ex- 
ports and imports, and their duties or customs 
on merchandize, and also what articles among 
them are prohibited or contraband. And enter 
the substance of all your information on the above 
heads, in a book kept for that purpose. # * * 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 341f 

12. "I must press upon you to be saving of your 
money, and not to spend it unnecessarily. If you 
do not observe this direction, you will find by 
woful experience that you have rejected the most 
salutary advice. From the diminution of my 
estate by the depreciation of the currency, you 
and your brothers must expect to make your 
fortunes by your own industry and frugality. * * * 
But when 1 advise you to be saving of your money, 
I do not intend that you should ever appear mean 
and niggardly, nor grudge Httle expense upon 
proper occasions, when you must either part with 
your money or appear contemptible ; as when you 
are necessarily engaged in company, and they go 
rather farther in the expenses of the club than you 
could wish : in such case and in others that will 
occur, one must sometimes conform against his 
inclinations, to save his character, and afterwards 
make it up by retrenching some other expenses 
and a greater economy. 

"And now, my dear child, 1 wish you a safe 
voyage, with prosperity in this world, and ever- 
lasting happiness in the next ; and to secure the 
last, which is of infinitely the greatest consequence, 
oh ! let me entreat you not to forget your Creator 
in the days of your youth, but wherever you go, to 
remember your duty to the great God, who alone 
can prosper you in this hfe, and make you happy 
in that which is to come." 

The young officer went out in the Saratoga, a 
vessel so named in honour of the victory of Gates, 



348 THE LIFE OP 

and made one or two successful cruises. In the 
course of the next year, however, the ship was lost 
at sea, and no tidings were ever received of the 
fate of any individual on board. The death of his 
son afflicted Governor Livingston, immersed in 
business as he was, extremely. He long clung to 
.the belief that the vessel was captured, and with 
this hope caused inquiries to be instituted in all 
the principal ports of Europe. Among his latest 
correspondence, in the year 1790, is a letter from 
Mr. Jay in answer to one of his, on the subject of 
a rumour that his son was a prisoner in Algiers. 

The alarms of invasion by the British, and of 
attempts by the refugees, or scouting parties of 
the enemy, upon the person or life of Governor 
Livingston, appear to have been incessant about 
this time ; and the following orders given on this 
subject deserve notice, as showing that however 
violent might be the plans of the refugees, the 
designs of the English authorities were dictated 
by a spirit compatible with civilized warfare.* 

" TO ENSIGN MOODY^ 

•' First Battalion New-Jersey Volunteers. 

" Head-quarters, New- York, ) 
May 10th, 1780. ) 

" Sir, 
"You are hereby directed and authorized to 
proceed, without loss of time, with a small detach^ 

* These orders are printed from a copy among Governor 
Livingston's papers. - 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 349 

ment into the Jerseys, by the most convenient 
route, in order to carry off the person of Governor 
Livingston, or any other acting in pubHc stations 
whom you may fall in with in the course of your 
march, or any persons whom you may meet with, \ 
and whom it may be necessary to secure for your 
own security and that of the party under your 
command. 

" Should you succeed in taking Governor 
Livingston, you are to treat him according to his 
station, as far as lies in your power, nor are you 
upon any account to offer any violence to his 
person. You will use your endeavours to get 
possession of his papers, which you will take 
care of, and upon your return deliver at head- 
quarters. 

" By order of his Excellency, Lieutenant-general 
Knyphausen, # 

"Geo. Beckwith, 

" Aid-de-camp. 

" 1 do certify the above to be a true copy from 
the original. 

" J. Lawrence, Jun. 
"Capt. N. Y. State Levies." 

On the 6th of June, the British made an incur- 
sion by Elizabethtown into New-Jersey, in consider- 
able force. Pushing the Ucense of war to the ex- 
treme, they burned the villages of Springfield and 
Connecticut Farms, within a few miles of Living- 
ston's seat, and marked the Hne of their advance 



350 THE LIFE OF 

• 

by plunder and destruction. The day sufficiently 
conspicuous in its horrors, has been rendered even 
more notorious by the cold-blooded murder of Mrs. 
Caldwell. The feeUngs of Governor Livingston, 
who was at Trenton with the Assembly, on re- 
ceiving this intelligence, may be best understood 
from the following letter to his wife, who, with two 
of her daughters, had but a short time previously 
left the residence which she had occupied at 
Percepany, in Morris county, and returned to 
Ehzabethtown, solely with a view to the security 
of the property, which she conceived, and as it 
proved rightly, her presence might have the effect 
of ensuring. 

" Trenton, 9th June, 1780. 
"My Dear Susan, 
" Thodigh I never have had any express from 
head-quarters concerning the irruption of the 
enemy, yet by all accounts they have penetrated the 
country as far as Springfield, and I am told have 
burnt and destroyed all before them. My anxiety 
for you and the children has been inexpressible, 
and 1 have had a most miserable night of it upon 
your account. Our house and every thing in it is 
doubtless gone, the loss of which, great as it is, 1 
should be able to bear with fortitude, but the 
thought of your situation, and that of the poor girls, 
cuts me to the heart. I should have sent before 
to know how it is with you, but that my express 
was unfortunately gone on a journey, and that I 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 351 

every moment expected an account from head- 
quarters. 

tP TP ^ Tp Tt* ^ 

" Pray, my dear Sukey, write me a full account 
of what you have suffered, and I will sympathize 
with you till 1 can revenge it upon the British 
scoundrels. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

His alarm was, however, unfounded — the flames 
of the neighbouring villages were in sight, but the 
British respected Liberty-hall, and treated the 
family with great courtesy. The following extract 
relating to this event, from Rivington's Gazette of 
the 29th June, 1780, furnishes a good illustration 
of the tone assumed by the loyalists towards the 
whigs. 

] " Mr. Printer, 

" By inserting the underwritten paragraph, you 
will oblige a customer and loyal subject, though 
humane herself, thinking that lenity may go too far. 
Your new female correspondent expects to see 
your obedience to-morrow. 'Tis true in every 
particular. 

" We are informed, from undoubted authority, 
that on the return of the British allies, detached 
on the expedition to Springfield in the Jersies, last 
Friday, the 23d instant, the Hon. Lieutenant-colo- 
nel Cosmo Gordon, commanding the first battal- 
ion of British guards, received, at the head of the 



352 THE LIFE OF 

brigade, a ball on the upper part of his thigh 
from the fields of the back part of the house 
of the rebel Governor Livingston; most proba- 
ble his own servants, or tenants, keeped up the 
fire which struck the very person who in the morn- 
ing made a civil visit, with three or four of the 
officers of the corps, and received a rose from 
Miss Susan L., as a pledge of protection, and a 
memorandum of a request of a safe-guard to save 
the house from a fate the well-known sins of the 
father made it justly merit ; though even at that 
period inhabited by two ladies, so amiable in ap- 
pearance as to make it scarcely possible to sup- 
pose they are daughters of such an arch fiend as 
the cruel and seditious proprietor of the mansion. 
It is a well-known fact, that there was a guard to 
protect the house, during the continued fire on the 
column from the fields all around, and that the ver- 
min followed the royal troops from the vicinity of 
the Congress governor's horse, keeping a continual 
galling fire, till the rear passed the orchard in Eliza- 
bethtown, and the advanced Jager videttes awed 
them back to their grateful and humane master's 
house and farm. 

"New-York, June 29, 1780." 

The following note, to Governor Livingston's 
daughter, may also be inserted, as connected 
with the same event. The writer was wife of the 
minister at Connecticut Farms. 



william livingston. 353 

"Dear Miss, 
" The families that are burnt out are principally 
widows ; the rest are removed to such a distance, 
that were there any probability of their accepting 
your proposal, we should not know where to find 
them ; but were they to be spoke with, such are 
their apprehensions that they would not come for 
any considerations whatever. I pity your situation 
with my own — may a gracious God direct and de- 
fend us, and oh ! that our trust may be in Him. 
" From yours, respectfully, 

"A. HoiT. 
" Sunday, one o'clock." 

An anecdote connected with this invasion has 
been traditionally preserved, which appears au- 
thentic in its leading features, although there is 
some discrepancy in its details. After a day spent 
in the utmost alarm, caused by the constant passage 
of the enemy's troops, immediately in front of their 
residence, and the sight of the flames of Spring- 
field and Connecticut Farms, Mrs. Livingston and 
her daughters were agreeably surprised by the 
entrance, late in the evening, of several British 
officers, who gave them to understand that a re- 
treat had commenced, and that they would pass 
the night in their house. Secure in having under 
the same roof gentlemen and officers who would 
protect them from any bands of lawless stragglers, 
the ladies retired. 

About midnight, however, they were alarmed by 

Y Y 



354 THE LIFE OF 

a noise, which proved to be occasioned by the de- 
parture of the officers, hurried off by unexpected 
news. Their disturbed rest was soon after com- 
pletely broken up, and their alarm brought to a 
height when a band of intoxicated soldiers rushed 
into the hall, swearing they would " burn the rebel 
house." The maid-servant (all the males of the 
establishment having taken refuge in the woods 
early in the day, to avoid being made prisoners), 
fastened herself in the kitchen, and the ladies 
crowding together hke frighted deer, locked them- 
selves in another apartment. The ruffians soon 
discovered the place of their retreat ; and afraid 
to exasperate them by refusing to come out, one 
of Governor Livingston's daughters opened the 
door. The drunken soldier seized her by the arm, — 
with a spirit worthy of her parent, she grasped the 
fellow's collar, and at this moment a flash of light- 
ning illumining the hall, and falling full upon the 
lady's white dress, he staggered back, exclaiming, 
"God! it's Mrs. Caldwell that we killed to- 
day."* One of the party, who were refugees, was 
at length recognised, and the house was, by his in- 

* There has been some controversy, as is well known, as to the 
immediate agent of Mrs. Caldwell's death — whether he was 
Britisher American. If the above anecdote be correct, the doubt 
is solved. But in addition to the circumstances not well calcu- 
lated to ensure accuracy, under which the soldier's exclamation 
was both uttered and heard, another version of the story puts an 
entirely different ejaculation into his mouth. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 355 

tervention, finally rid of the presence of his ruffian 
companions. 

The English did not leave the State for about 
three weeks ; and on the 23d of June, a sharp ac- 
tion was fought at Springfield. This was the last 
military movement of any consequence in this 
State. General Washington went into winter quar- 
ters in the State of New-York, and from this 
period the history of New-Jersey occupies a less 
important space in the annals of the country. 

The national currency was at this time at a low 
ebb, and all creditors and public officers sensibly 
felt the depreciation. Governor Livingston's salary 
for this year was fixed at £8000 continental money, 
which not amounting to more than £150 in silver, 
the Legislature added £300 of what was called 
lawful money, emitted by the State ; but this " law- 
ful" being itself about 50 per cent, below par, his 
salary and perquisites together did not exceed a 
thousand dollars ; and at this time he had a large 
family, was constantly travelling, and every article 
of consumption was exorbitantly high. 

But, loser though he was by the national cur- 
rency, and the laws passed for its support, as at the 
same time that he was receiving a very insufficient 
salary, his debtors availed themselves of the Ten- 
der-laws to discharge their obligations in the de- 
preciated money, he considered it a duty to uphold 
at all times, so far as lay in his power, the national 
schemes of- finance. In a letter of the 7th Feb- 
ruary, 1779, to Francis Hopkinson, he says, «1 



356 THE LIFE OF 

• 

have not a single grain of gold or silver in the 
world, nor would 1 by any means purchase it for 
continental dollars at the difference of one far- 
thing to the exchange." He was frequently appealed 
to, in order to prevent evasion or violation of the 
laws on the paA of creditors or venders, and 1 
find him refusing to recommend a person for the 
office of postmaster for the reason that " 1 have 
heard of his refusing to take continental money." 
The following letter, addressed to him on this sub- 
ject, though of somewhat later date, finds its place 
most properly here. 

" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

"Bordentown, Feb. 7th, 1781. 
" Sir, 
" I have taken the earhest opportunity of 
answering your Excellency's letter of yesterday, 
which I have just received. I profess to be a 
friend to my country, and am sorry to see so little 
regard paid to its laws. Nevertheless would not 
choose to be an informer or meddler in other 
men's matters; but in compliance with your 
Excellency's request, do say, 1 was at Mr. Stacey 
Potts's with Mr. Bunting, on business, ye 31st of 
last month: he (Mr. Bunting) asked him (Mr. 
Potts) the price of his leather breeches; he 
answered ten dollars. Mr. Bunting said it was 
too high, and desired to hear his lowest price in 
hard money ; he again told him ten dollars ; Mr. 
Bunting again demanded his lowest price in 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 357, 

jingleing stuff; Mr. Potts then told him if he gave 
him a half Joe he would give him some change. 

"He not having the article I wanted, I went 
out and heard no more until Mr. Bunting told me, 
as we returned home, that he agreed to take seven 
dollars. Which affair I, as well as Mr. Bunting, 
have mentioned to some of our neighbours, by 
which means it has reached your Excellency's ear. 
" I am. Sir, 
" Your Excellency's very humble servant, 

" Samuel Smith." 

But while Governor Livingston thus enforced 
these laws upon others, he uniformly opposed their 
passage, and never availed himself of them in 
regard to his own creditors. " No acts of Assem- 
bly," he says, under date of the 19th January, 1789, 
" have hitherto been able to reconcile me to cheat- 
ing according to law, or convinced me that human 
legislators can alter the immutable duties of 
morality." And in some lines written in ridicule 
of them, he says, 

" For useless a house-door, e'en if we should lock it, 
When any insolvent legislative brother 
Can legally enter into a man's pocket. 
And preamble all his cash into another." 

The following extract from a letter to his wife, 
written from Trenton, and dated 17th October, 
1780, while the annual election was yet undecided, 
shows how independent his simple, but varied tastes 



358 THE LIFE OF 

rendered him of all the attractions which office 
holds out. 

" If I should not be re chosen in the government, 
1 purpose to spend the winter at Raritan, to 
refresh my memory with the law, and to practise 
it as soon as I get business. But if 1 should be 
chosen, I intend to take lodgings in this place, the 
most safe and most convenient to the people for 
doing business, who now complain that they do 
not know where to find me. I also send you a 
parcel of peach stones, least the late troubles of 
the family should have prevented you from saving 
any. They should immediately be put into a hole 
in the garden, with some mark to find them again 
in the spring." 

He was shortly after re-elected by the vote of 
twenty-eight of the thirty-six members who com- 
posed the joint meeting. Colonel Brearley and 
General Dickinson dividing thd minority. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 359 



CHAPTER X. 

1781, Jan., Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line — Sacrifice of Land 
in Vermont — Conduct of Governor Livingston, and Letters on 
the subject of Passes — 1782, Letter from Sir Guy Carleton — 
from Jefferson — 1783, Peace — Returns to Elizabethtown. 

The year 1781 was inauspiciously opened by the 
mutiny of the troops of the Pennsylvania hne, 
stationed in New-Jersey. Governor Livingston, 
in a letter to General Schuyler, dated Bordentown, 
18th January, thus speaks of it : "1 was obliged to 
decamp from Trenton to this place, on the 
entrance of General Wayne's myrmidons into the 
former, lest they might make a holyday with my 
public documents. At present, the lads are as 
easy as the Congress and Pennsylvania are just. 
Throughout the whole contest, good has always 
come out of evil. This reflection has supported 
me in every difficulty. Even this alarming mutiny 
has ended to our honour and the confusion of the 
enemy." 

At the first annual election of the American 
Philosophical Society, in January of this year, 
when Franklin was elected president. Governor 
Livingston was chosen, with Jefferson, Wither- 
spoon, and Dr. Duffield, a councillor for two years. 
The following letter to John Mathews, at this 



360 THE LIFE OP 

time a delegate in Congress from South Carolina^ 
expresses that unshaken confidence in the final 
success of the great cause, which seems never for 
a moment to have abandoned the writer. 

"Trenton, 2d February, 1781. 
« Sir, 
• «#*«* 

" Our affairs, I am sensible, do not at present 
wear the most pleasing aspect ; but I have known 
them as bad, yet, thanks to Heaven, I have never 
desponded ; though I have often had my diffi^ 
culties, I am confident that we shall prevail. I am 
confident that the Almighty is on our side, and I 
am confident that the ivorld was not made for Cmsar. 
But I know at the same time that Providence will 
abandon us as a parcel of ingrates, if we neglect 
to do for ourselves what we can do. * * * 

" Up and be doing, and then trust for the event 
to Providence, and God will bless our endeavours. 
But by the counter-operation of the tories and/aw^ 
d''argent, our political salvation will doubtless re- 
semble that of our eternal one, which the Scrip- 
ture informs us will be as by fire. A complete army, 
well found and well paid, with General Washington 
at the head of it, and I doubt not the Supreme 
Being will soon render us victorious. 

" If the levies cannot be raised, or when raised, 
cannot be clothed and paid on the plans at 
present adopted by the respective Legislatures, 
Congress ought to have, undoubtedly, authority to 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 361 

enforcfe every measure necessary for the preserve^ 
tion of the whole union. What is become of our 
promise to stand by Congress with our hves and 
fortunes ? is it all evaporated in speculation and 
peculation, in toryism and neutrality? and are 
those who have really abided by that solemn 
compact, tamely to suffer the violation of it by 
those villains who daily infringe it ? There ought, 
sir, no tory to be suffered to exist in America. 
And till the line be fairly drawn, and the goats 
separated from the sheep, we must expect to row 
against the stream. * # * 

*' 1 am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

During this year, Governor Livingston appears 
to have been closely occupied with the details of 
his office ; but he found time to write to his foreign 
correspondents letters which, though of no partic- 
ular interest now, were highly valuable at the time 
for the accurate information that they gave of the 
state of affairs in this country. His son says, writ- 
ing from Madrid, 29th of April, 1781, " Your letters 
have been sent to the prime minister, and by his 
order inserted in the Spanish Gazette. They have 
dispelled some unfavourable impressions, and have 
been of real service in more ways than one." 
" All my correspondence abroad," says Livingston 
(2d of February, 1781), "is in co-operation with 
the great design, the final establishment of our in- 
dependence." In unison with this plan, he in Feb- 

z z 



362 THE LIFE OF 

ruary of this year addressed a letter to M. Dumas 
on the subject of American interests. 

About this time, when he had nearly reached 
the age of sixty, Governor Livingston, with an ac- 
tivity of mind which recalls the anecdote of the 
stoical Roman, excited by the connexions his coun- 
try had formed with France, set himself about ac- 
quiring a grammatical knowledge of the French 
language, and pursued it so far as to be able to 
read it fluently, and write it with some ease, though 
little accuracy. 

The contest between New-York and Vermont 
was brought to a crisis in this spring, and most, if 
not all of the foreign grants by which lands were 
held in the new State, were declared by its 
Legislature void. Livingston, who had inherited, 
or purchased under titles derived from the gov- 
ernment of his native colony, a valuable tract of 
land, comprising about 6000 acres, and form- 
ing a considerable portion of what is now the 
town of Royalton, was assured by one or two of 
the leading men in the State, that in consideration 
of his elevated character and conspicuous exer- 
tions in the American cause, their Legislature 
would be easily induced to assign him other lands 
in compensation for those taken, or to grant him 
some other equivalent. 

Governor Livingston had looked with little fa- 
vor upon the course pursued by Vermont. He 
thought the spirit of the people devoted to their 
own local interests, and opposed to the dig- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 3B3 

nity and advantage of the union. Unwilling to be 
treated with any peculiar lenity, or in any way to 
acknowledge their independent authority, he dis- 
missed the messenger who brought him these 
friendly offers, exclaiming with no little asperity, 
^' No, no ! I'll not countenance the robbers;" — and 
thus, from the very exaggeration of integrity, he 
sacrificed a property valued at above ten thousand 
dollars.* 

The laws passed by the State of New-Jersey 
on the subject of intercourse with the British have 
been already spoken of. The restraints necessa- 
rily imposed upon the citizens, and the people of 
the frontier especially, were becoming every day 
more and more irksome. The temptations to 
the ilhcit trade with the enemy were great, and 
the applications for permission to go to or return 
from New-York innumerable. Under these circum- 
stances, Livingston was unremitting in his endea- 
vours to induce or compel the subordinate officers 
to do their duty, and in his own department there 
appears no instance in which he departed from 
the rigid construction of the laws, which he had 

* Williams's Hist. Vermont, Chapter x., and letters from M. 
Lyon and Thomas Chittenden, in Rivington's Gazette of 13th 
March, 1781. It is unnecessary to say that I have no intention 
of affirming the correctness of Governor Livingston's opinion of 
the course pursued by Vermont in relation to the establishment 
of her independence. It is not requisite to go into the merits of 
that long protracted struggle in order to appreciate the motives 
which prompted him in this affair. 



364 THE LIFE OP 

originally laid down for himself. It was all impor- 
tant that the morals of the community should not 
be undermined by a traffic lucrative, but highly 
criminal, and that no heart-burnings or jealousies 
should be created by any partial distributions of 
favours. It required no small force of character 
to resist the various temptations which friendship, 
relationship, and the influence of office threw 
across his path. A weak man would have yielded 
to the urgency of the petitions, and no one that 
had any portion of the bad traits of a demagogue 
would have thought to gain the favour of the mul- 
titude by dismissing such a crowd of individual 
applications. The following letters illustrate his 
conduct in this particular. 

" TO HENRY GERRITSE. 

"Trenton, 26th December, 1781. 

« Sir, 
" On considering your application to me re- 
specting A and P , I think it so far 

from being consistent with my duty to obtain 
liberty for them to come into this State, that I 
shall make it my business, whenever I find that 
they presume to return home, to have them pre- 
vented. We have too many such characters in 
the State already to procure the importation of 
more. 

"WiL. Livingston," 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTOrf. 365 

" TO THE REV. MR. TIMOTHY JOHNES. 

" Trenton, 15th AprU, 1782. 
" Dear Sir, 
" Your letter of the 5th instant was just now put 
into my hands. I have no reason to doubt Mrs. 
P.'s whiggism, her indisposition of body, or her in- 
clination to see her mother. But of what particu- 
lar tendency the air of Long-Island may have to 
restore her to health, I do not think myself a com- 
petent judge. 1 cannot, however, help remarking, 
that the artifices of the sex are multiform beyond 
expression, and it is full as common for those who 
want a jaunt out of the enemy's hues into ours to 
expatiate on the superior salubrity of the Jersey 
air, as it is for those among us who have a passion 
to see themselves in Long-Island, to turn encomi- 
asts on the transcendent excellency of the air of 
Nassau. In short, a woman makes nothing of 
changing the nature of any of the elements to 
gain her point. I do not mean to apply this re- 
mark to Mrs. P , nor to any individual in par- 
ticular. But I have so often been deceived by 
pretensions of this kind, that 1 entertain a univer- 
sal distrust of them, nor ever think myself safe 
with less evidence than the best that the nature of 
the thing admits of * * * 
" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 



366 THE LIFE OF 

" Trenton, 2d September, 1782. 
« Sir, 
« After what I writ you about your granting a 

passport to Mr. T , whom I sent back to 

New-York, there being perhaps not a greater 
scoundrel, among all the refugees, I am the more 
surprised to hear that you have since given a pass 

to one J C , who ought to have been 

committed. For God's sake, sir, do not assist the 
refugees and tories to deluge this State with their 
detestable presence. It is the duty of the magis- 
trates to commit and bind over every man coming 
from New- York without the passport appointed by 
law, and you have no authority to give passes to 
any such characters. I therefore earnestly wish 
that you would in fiiture confine yourself in grant- 
ing passes to the line of your duty, which by the 
act relative to passports is so clearly pointed out 
that it cannot be mistaken. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

In the same unyielding temper, he writes as fol- 
lows to his wife, who had perhaps more influence 
with him than any other person. 

" TO MRS. LIVINGSTON. 

"Trenton, 1st Feb., 1782. 
"Dear Sukey, 
" I have received your letter of the 28th last. I 
wonder how you could think of beginning a letter 
to me in such a style as to say that you approached 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 367 

me with fear and trembling. I can assure you it 
made me tremble, so as to be disabled for some 
time from reading on, and till I found what was 
really the subject matter of it, I shook Uke a leaf. 
You have no reason, my dear friend, to approach 
me with fear and trembling, in asking any favour 
for any person, and if it is either out of my power 
or improper to grant it, I can only do what in such 
case 1 ought to do, refuse it. 

" With respect to L B , he has 

made his escape, so that I am delivered from the 
mortification of denying your request, of ordering 
him out of irons till his conviction, which I could 
not have done, because the officer who had him 
in charge, had a right to keep him in such manner 
as he thought him most safe. # * * 
" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

But immovable as we find him, when any private 
advantage or pleasure was petitioned, the claims 
of humanity always found a ready ear, and prompt 
acquiescence. 

A close examination of contemporary docu- 
ments is requisite, to show how much the people 
of New-Jersey suffered from their exposed situa- 
tion. Without going into particulars, which would 
more properly belong to (what is still to be exe- 
cuted), a minute and accurate history of the war 
in that State, a few particulars may be here 
grouped together, in proof of what has been said. 



368 THE LIFE OF 

On the 15th of October, 1781, a party of refugees 
landed at Shrewsbury, and in a skirmish between 
them and the inhabitants. Doctor Nathaniel Scud- 
der, a very estimable man, who had represented 
the State in Congress, was killed. On the 10th of 
January, 1782, a party of regulars crossed over to 
Elizabethtown, to the number of three hundred : 
on the 13th and 27th of March, two other in- 
cursions were made by the refugees. These 
inroads, resembling more nearly the border feuds 
and forays of Scotland than any other warfare, 
were always marked by devastation and plun- 
der; and when the marauders were resisted, by 
bloodshed.* 

In June, 1781, an act was passed by the Legis- 
lature with the intention of preventing, or at least 
checking, the traffic carried on between the 
Americans and the British across the hostile lines. 
Considerable excitement was created on the sub- 
ject, and associations were entered into throughout 
the State, to further the same desirable end. 

In October, Livingston was again elected gover- 
nor, by a unanimous vote ;t but although, as we 
have said, he was at this time exclusively occupied 
with the details of his office, there are few inci- 
dents to be recorded, and the following letter 
brings us to the close of this year. 

* Vid. N. J. Gazette, passim. 

t Min. Joint Meeting, N. J. State Library. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 369 

" TO ROBERT LIVINGSTON. 

"Trenton, 17th Dec, 1781. 
" Dear Brother, 
" I hear that your very numerous family is going 
to be increased by the addition of one of mine. 

I fear S will be troublesome to a house so 

overrun with company as yours. But my poor 
girls are so terrified at the frequent incursions of 
the refugees into Elizabethtown, that it is a kind 
of cruelty to insist on their keeping at home, 
especially as their mother chooses rather to submit 
to her present solitary life than to expose them to 
such disagreeable apprehensions. But she herself 
will keep her ground to save the place from being 
ruined, and I must quit it to save my body from 
the provost in New- York; so that we are all 
scattered about the country. But by the blessing 
of God, and the instrumentahty of General 
Washington and Robert Morris, I hope we shall 
drive the devils to Old England before next June. 
The naval operations of the United Provinces 
(by a letter 1 lately received from a noble corres- 
pondent), appear still greatly retarded by the 
faction of the Prince of Orange. If the patriotic 
party cannot give his serene highness a Dutch 
for an Enghsh heart, 1 hope that, rather than suffer 
themselves to be outwitted by him, he may be 
Dewitted by them. 

" Cornwallis's party in New- York is open- 
mouthed against Clinton, and throws all the blame 
of his lordship's capture on Sir Harry. The latter 

AAA 



370 THE LIFE OF 

justifies himself by the impracticability of affording 
succours after the arrival of the French fleet. 
Whether either of them is to be blamed for this 
disaster 1 know not, but I know somebody on 
whom they may safely throw it, and who is very 
willing to bear it, General Washington. 

" 1 should be very sorry to have Clinton recalled 
through any national resentment against him, 
because as fertile as that country is in the produc- 
tion of blockheads, I think they cannot easily send 
us a greater blunderbuss, unless perad venture it 
should please his majesty himself to do us the 
honour of a visit. 

" I am, (fee. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

In January, 1782, Governor Livingston was 
elected a member of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, at Cambridge, not even the 
pressure of the war being able to divert the at- 
tention of that part of the country from those 
humanizing pursuits in which it has been so suc- 
cessful. Dr. Stiles, of Yale College, in a letter of 
courtesy, dated 14th March, 1782, says with a 
slight approach to that inflation which is, percep- 
tible in most of the literary productions of that 
worthy man, "While the present revolution has 
made shipwreck of many characters which set out 
well in hfe, it gives us pleasure to rejoice in the 
firmness of your Excellency's character, and the 
singular glory with which it will transmit itself to 
all American ages." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 371 

Livingston's son, Brockholst, quitted the Spanish 
embassy, to which he had been attached as Mr. 
Jay's private secretary, in the early part of this 
year, and sailed for America. On his voyage he 
was captured by a British vessel and carried into 
New-York, where he was imprisoned by the orders 
of Sir Henry Clinton, or General Robertson. Sir 
Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, suc- 
ceeded to the chief command in May, 1782, and 
immediately liberating Colonel Livingston, sent 
by him to his father a letter,* which was the 
commencement of a courteous correspondence 
of some length. The temper which dictated this 
letter, and for which Carleton was at all times 
conspicuous, is now beginning only at too late a 
day to diffuse itself rapidly among the inhabitants 
of the two countries. "With Great Britain, alike 
distinguished in peace and war, we may look 
forward to years of peaceful, honourable, and 
elevated competition. Every thing in the condi- 
tion and history of the two nations is calculated to 
inspire sentiments of mutual respect, and to carry 
conviction to the minds of both that it is their 
policy to preserve the most cordial relations."t 
It is to be hoped for the future, that these senti- 
ments, promulgated by our highest constitutional 
authority, may regulate not less our private than 
our pubhc intercourse. 

* This letter, which it was not practicable to insert in ita 
proper place, will be found in the appendix. 

t President Jackson's Message, 8th Dec, 1829. 



372 THE LIFE OF 

The rumors of attempts to seize Governor Liv- 
ingston's person, I find several times occurring 
during this year, and they seem to have consider- 
ably harassed his nervous and excitable temper. 
In reply to a letter from Col. David Humphrey, 
sent at Washington's request to inform him of 
such a scheme conducted by some refugees, he 
writes thus. 

« Trenton, 28th October, 1783. 
" Sir, 
" I have this day been favoured with your letter 
of the 26th instant, inclosing that of Mr. Cogswell 
of the 24th. I am under the greatest obhgations, 
both to you and to that gentleman, for the intelli- 
gence those letters communicated. Many of these 
kinds of reports are undoubtedly without founda- 
tion; others 1 have afterwards been convinced 
were founded in fact. Providence hath hitherto 
been pleased to preserve me from the machina- 
tions, as it has a gentleman of infinitely more im- 
portance to the common cause. It is, however, 
prudent to be watchful, and caution is better than 
remedy. But after all, the fellows are as great 
blockheads as they are rascals, for taking so much 
pains and running any risk to assassinate an old 
fellow whose place might instantly be supphed by 
a successor of greater ability and greater energy.) 

" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 378 

The vote by which Livingston was re-elected 
governor in the fall of this year, is not recorded in 
the minutes of the joint meeting. 

In the early part of the next year, while Mr. Jef- 
ferson was in Philadelphia, from which place 
he then expected to be immediately sent to Eu- 
rope in a diplomatic capacity, and on the eve of 
his intended departure* he wrote the following let- 
ter to Governor Livingston. 

" Philadelphia, January, 1783. 
" Dear Sir, 
" It gives me real concern that I have been here 
several days, and so closely engaged that I have 
not been able to pay you the respect of a letter, 
and to assure you that 1 hold among my most es- 
timable acquaintances, that which I had the plea- 
sure of contracting with you at this place. I am 
the more concerned, as expecting to leave this 
place on Tuesday next, 1 might have been grati- 
fied by the carrying letters from you to Mr. and 
Mrs. Jay. Perhaps it may not yet be too late. * * 
I beg you to accept my sincere wishes for your 
happiness, and believe me very really, 
" Dear sir, your most obedient, 

" And most humble friend and servant, 

" Th. Jefferson." 

During this winter, the rumors of approaching 
peace daily increased, and the strong desire fqlt 

• Jefferson's Mem. vol. i. p. 42. 



374 THE LIFE OF 

for it by the whole people, excepting a portion of 
the commercial population, with whom it is a sin- 
gular fact that a contrary wish existed,* was alter- 
nately gratified and disappointed by the contradic- 
tory reports which almost every vessel brought 
from Europe. It was at one time reported through 
New-Jersey that Mr. Jay had returned from Eu- 
rope, and it was in reply to a letter of Dr. John 
Rodgers, expressing a desire to know if this intel- 
hgence were true, and what was the actual state 
of the negotiations, that the following was written. 

"Trenton, 27th January, 1783. 

#^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ 

Tp "Tr •7t» "n" Ti* 

" Your letter, sir, pleases me much more for 
being written in the familiar style of friend and 
friend, than it would have done had it been replete 
with Excellencies from beginning to end, with the 
applicable superaddition of all the titles that ever 
were used or mvented within the whole circuit of 
the German empire. As to the prospect of a peace 



* "Perhaps," says Robert Morris in a (MS.) letter to Matthew 
Ridley, dated Philadelphia, 6th October, 1782, "you may be 
surprised when I tell you, that in this city, the prospect of peace 
has given more general discontent than any thing that has hap- 
pened in a long lime ; particularly among the mercantile part of 
the community." Gouverneur Morris in a (MS.) letter to the 
same person, of the 16th August, 1782, expresses the same 
feeling. " I am well convinced of two things, one that a peace 
will not easily be made, and another that it is not much for 
the interest of America that it should be made at present." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 375 

taking place this winter, * * * my hopes, 1 say, 
of so desirable an event, are, I confess, not very san- 
guine. At New-York, it is true, they are full of 
peace. So full, indeed, that from that very circum- 
stance, I am the more suspicious about it. Timeo 
Danaos et dojia ferentes. We ought never to suffer 
these kinds of reports to lull us into security, which 
is frequently the artful design of the tories in pro- 
pagating them. In worldly politics, as well as re- 
ligion, we should watch as well as pray. * * * 
In my opinion America should act as if she 
thought that there would be no peace in three or 
four years. * # * 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. LrVINGSTON." 

The exposed situation of New-Jersey subjected 
her unprotected frontier at all times to the incur- 
sions of the enemy, and even at this period, al- 
most to the last moment that hostilities were al- 
lowed, while other parts of the continent v/ere en- 
joying the blessings of peace, her citizens were 
harassed, and their property plundered with that 
unmitigated severity which uniformly character- 
izes a border and partisan warfare. The follow- 
ing letter, one of the writers of which had been a 
delegate in Congress, and the other speaker of the 
Assembly, will convey some idea of the closing 
scenes of the contest. 



376 



THE LIFE OF 



" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

" Cumberland, February lOth, 178?. 
" Please your Excellency, 
" The late repeated incursions upon the frontier 
inhabitants of this county, from armed boats cruis- 
ing in the Delaware, render it necessary, in otir 
humble opinion, to have a small guard of the 
militia stationed in divers places, near shore, for 
the purpose of reconnoitering the enemy, and giving 
certain intelligence to the body of mihtia in the 
adjacent parts of the county, by which means we 
hope to prevent a repetition of such insults and 
robbery as we have been forced to submit to by 
the merciless crews belonging to the said boats, 
who have conducted Hke the emissaries of a Brit- . 
ish tyrant, lost to every principle of humanity 
which inspires a true soldier. They have, under 
cover of the night, rushed violently into defence- 
less houses, and robbed whole families of their 
cash, provisions, and even their common and most 
necessary clothing, without respect to the delicacy 
or tenderness of sex or age. One of the afore- 
said boats' crews, consisting of nine men, the most 
of them Britons by birth, principle, and practice, 
sailed from New-York last month for an eight 
weeks' cruise in the Delaware, which terminated 

in three weeks, and lodged the whole of 

robbers secure in the jail of this county — taken 
by the militia after plundering one house in the 
manner before mentioned. * # » 

" Ephraim Harris, 
" Theo. Elmer." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 377 

The news of the signature of the prehminaries 
by the commissioners at length arrived. On the 
11th of April, a cessation of hostihties was pro- 
claimed, and on the 15th the first treaty was rati- 
fied. Governor Livingston's fortune had become 
so embarrassed, as we have said, during the war, 
that he at one time feared lest he should be com- 
pelled to sell his place at Elizabethtown, and the 
following letter, written on this subject to his wife, 
shows how entirely free his character was from 
every taint of selfishness. 

'• TO MRS. LIVINGSTON. 

« 1783 

" Dear Sukey, 

#^ tU. ^ ^ 4& 

•A* TP tF 'Jv w 

" As to your opinion about disposing of our 
place at Elizabethtown, 1 cannot think that I am 
under any necessity of doing it, because, though I 
have greatly suffered by the war, I have a good 
estate left, if 1 can but get the time to put it in 
order. However, any thing that may appear most 
advantageous to my children 1 would readily 
consent to, especially for 'the sake of my two 
unmarried daughters, whom I am determined not 
to leave to the mercy of an unfeeling world. But 
as to hiring a place, I should not like, because in 
that case, if I should die before you, you would be 
at the mercy of a landlord, without a house of 
your own to put your head in. 

* * # * • 

B BB 



378 THE LIFE OF 

" I hope will not begin the world with- 
out a shilling in his pocket, though he might have 
gone into New-York without money. 1 had not 
then any money to give him, and I cannot cut 
money from my flesh. 

* * * * * * . 

" I am, 
" Your affectionate husband, 

" WiL. Livingston." 

This sacrifice was, however, on more mature 
deliberation, deemed unnecessary; and in April, 
after receiving a committee of the inhabitants of 
Trenton, who waited upon him to express their 
regret at his departure, he left that place, where 
he had resided for three years, and returned to 
Elizabethtown. His joy at being thus finally 
allowed to relinquish his wandering life, and in 
being permanently joined to his wife and children, 
overflows in his letters written about this time. 
He once more entered his deserted library, took 
upon himself the superintendence of his long 
neglected garden, and was rarely afterwards with- 
drawn, except by the' claims of his office, from 
these favorite pursuits. 

Writing to M. de Marbois, under date of the 
24th of September, he says, " Thanks to heaven 
that the times again permit me to pursue my 
favourite amusement of raising vegetables ; which, 
with the additional pleasure resulting from my 
library, I really prefer to all the bustle and splen- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 379 

dour of the world." The love of gardening 
amounted with Livingston, as he says, in the 
letter from which the above is extracted, to a 
passion. From his correspondents in different 
parts of the country, he was constantly collecting 
the choicest seeds. He took a delight and pride 
in the products of his labour and skill, and his 
name may be added to the list of those who, hke 
Walpole and Pope, have relieved themselves from 
the fatigue of more important and notorious trans- 
actions, by this, the earliest and least ambitious of 
all modes of occupation. 

The intercourse across the lines with New- 
York became now less shackled, and though 
passes were still required, permission of ingress 
and egress was easily obtained. Governor Living- 
ston, however, numerous as were the ties of 
affection and friendship drawing him to that city, 
refused to go while the British remained. " My 
republican pride," he says, in a letter of the 30th 
of June, " will not permit me to go to N. Y. to see 
my friends at the expense of being beholden to 
the English for such a permission." 

About this time the mutiny of the Jersey troops 
took place; and upon this alarming occasion, 
which called forth the devotion of all the hearty 
lovers of the union, Livingston wrote the following 
letter to Elias Boudinot, then President of Con- 
gress. 



380 THE LIFE OF 

" Trenton, 24th June, 1783. 
"Sir, 
" 1 just this moment received your Excellency's 
letter of yesterday, on my journey to Elizabeth- 
town. I am greatly mortified at the insult offered 
to Congress by a part of the soldiery. If that 
august body shall think proper to honour this 
State with their presence, 1 make not the least 
doubt that the citizens of New-Jersey will cheer- 
fully turn out to repel any violence that may be 
attempted against them : and, as soon as I shall 
be informed of the movement of Congress to this 
State, and that there is the least reason to appre- 
hend that the mutineers intend to prosecute their 
violent measures, I shall, with the greatest alacrity, 
give the necessary orders, and think myself not a 
httle honoured by being personally engaged in 
defending the representatives of the United States 
against every insult and indignity. 
" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

Resolutions were also forwarded to Congress at 
this time, by the inhabitants of Trenton and 
Princeton, expressive of their devotion to the 
federal cause, and their readiness to support its 
dignity. The college at the latter place offered 
the use of its buildings to the national Legislature, 
which was accepted on the 30th of the month. 

It may be mentioned as a proof of the reputa- 
tion Livingston had acquired abroad, that during 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 381 

the summer of this year, he received from the 
patriotic party of Enkhuysen, in Holland, a letter, 
accompanied by the nationally characteristic pre- 
sent of six cags of herring, sent as a tribute of 
their respect for his exertions in the cause of 
freedom. This chapter cannot be more appropri- 
ately closed than by the following extract from a 
letter to the Baron Van der Capellen, dated 18th 
Nov., 1783, although, perhaps, the scientific econ- 
omist may rightly object to the sentiment it 
conveys. 

" After all, sir, 1 think myself too patriotic to 
encourage the importation of foreign luxuries, 
especially during our present national poverty and 
our heavy debt, both foreign and domestic ; nor 
can 1 bear to see any of our cash transmitted to 
Europe and Asia, in quest of delicacies to tickle 
the palate, while 1 am accosted by a soldier with 
a wooden leg and a lost arm, who has a just 
demand of pay upon Congress, for his essential 
services in delivering his country from the late 
meditated tyranny." 



382 



THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER XL 

Definitive Treaty of Peace — Governor Livingston nominated 
Commissioner to erect the Federal Buildings — Chosen Minis- 
ter to Holland — Declines — Letters on the subject of Slavery 
— Livingston elected Delegate to the Federal Convention — 
Matthew Ridley — Disputes between the American Ministers 
in France in 1782. 

The news of the execution of the definitive 
treaty of Paris at length arrived. On the 25th of 
November, 1783, the British troops evacuated 
New-York, carrying with them a numerous suite 
of tories and refugees, and our soil was finally un- 
burthened by the foot of foreign or domestic foe. 
By the conclusion of peace and the departure of 
the English, the pecuhar features of Livingston's 
government were essentially altered — but though 
reheved from the more painful and harassing por- 
tions of his duty, the office was still highly labo- 
rious and responsible. 

The public mind of the States, hitherto occu- 
pied with the difficulties and dangers of their ex- 
ternal circumstances, now applied itself actively, 
but often precipitately and unwisely, to the exigen- 
cies of their internal condition. Questions began 
now to be mooted that had never been agitated 
before; problems in government to be discussed 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 383 

that even at this day are not fully solved. The 
Legislative tables were crowded with novel pro- 
jects, and the schemes of men little habituated to 
the unlimited exercise of the law-making power. 
The courts of law, too long closed or impeded in 
their operations, were now thronged with suitors. 

In this posture of affairs Livingston, invested 
with the powers of governor, chancellor, and or- 
dinary, could not expect much leisure in his office. 
Indeed, he says, in 1788, when the difficulties of 
his station would be supposed to have decreased, 
that scarcely a day passed without his being called 
upon to act either as governor or chancellor. 
This necessarily operated as a confinement, when 
he was not positively occupied, and detained him 
almost entirely at home. On the 6th of Novem- 
ber, he was re-elected governor by 33 out of 34 
votes,* and the following extracts from a letter to 
Hooper, of North Carolina, show the views with 
which he at this time took upon himself the ad- 
ministration of the State. 

"Trenton, 10th November, 1783. 
" My dear Friend, 
"Will you believe it.f^ I never ^ceived your 
letter of the 15th of May till a few days since. 
What malicious fiend or fairy, sylph or sylphite, 
or rather what infernal tory detained it, and there- 
by deprived me, during that interval, of the pleasure 
of hearing from you, I know not. * * * 

* Vid. Min. of Joint Meeting. 



384 THE LIFE OF 

"I have had the pleasure of spending the last 
summer with my family at Elizabethtown, which is 
the first time in seven years that I have had any 
place which 1 could properly call my home. My 
return, after so long an absence, gave me an addi- 
tional rehsh for that rural life and noiseless retire- 
ment for which I have long had an ardent passion. 
To gratify this rational taste, especially in an old 
man, I had some serious thoughts of declining all 
public business in future ; and to wrap myself in a 
sort of otium cum dignitate : but from the unanimity 
of the people, which (let politicians say what they 
please) is flattering to the most unambitious man, 
to continue me in office ; from my own conceit, 
whether true or false, that several matters would 
necessarily occur in the first year after the peace 
which would have such an ultimate connection 
with many transactions during the war, that an 
old hand might probably be more serviceable than 
a new one ; and from my still equal strength of con- 
stitution to what I had when you first knew me, I 
have again consented to take hold of our little 
political helm. It is much in your power, my dear 
sir, if you will not be at the trouble of enabling 
me, by your advice, to carry the ship by the straight- 
est course to the destined haven, to soothe at least 
the pilot on his tedious voyage by the agrements of 
your correspondence, upon which I do you the 
justice to be assured that I set an inexpressible 
value. 

" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 385 

But while the separate States were far from 
being completely relieved from their embarrass- 
ments by the declaration of peace, the difficulties 
of the Federal government seemed but increased 
by it. It is a striking proof of the radical defects 
of the confederation, that considerable alarm was 
felt lest a representation could not be obtained in 
Congress within the period hmited for the ratifi- 
cation of the definitive treaty. In January, 1784, 
Mifflin, then president of Congress, sent his private 
secretary. Colonel Harmar, to Governor Livingston, 
the more urgently to impress upon him the difficult 
situation of the Federal assembly. The following 
letter from the latter to John Beatty, one of the 
New-Jersey representatives, then in attendance at 
Annapohs (the seat of Congress), will show his 
anxiety and exertions on this subject. They 
proved successful, and the deficiency, so far as re- 
garded New-Jersey, was soon after corrected. 

" Elizabethtown, 9th Feb.» 1784. 
" Dear Sir, 
"It was not before yesterday that I received 
your letter of the 22d of January, enclosing the 
resolves of Congress of the 15th. What demon 
of sluggishness has taken possession of the dele- 
gates, your colleagues, I know not ; but to con- 
vince you that 1 have discharged my duty in my 
endeavours to exorcise the evil spirit, I have not 
only wrote to Doctors Dick and Elmer in the 
most importunate manner, and in the name of the 

o cc 



386 THE LIFE OF 

State, before the rising of the Assembly, but have 
again written to them on the 16th of last month, 
informing them of the president's letter to me, and 
of the absolute necessity there was that one of 
them should attend, to constitute a representation 
for this State, as Mr. Stevens was unexpectedly 
prevented from going. I can no more. It has 
always appeared to me an inscrutable mystery, 
how men of honour can reconcile it to themselves, 
voluntarily to accept of a public trust, and be in- 
different whether they execute it or not, or at least 
to suffer themselves to be impeded in the dis- 
charge of it by such of their own private affairs 
as they must needs have known, before they 
accepted the office, would occur. * * * 
" I am, &c. 

"WiL. Livingston." 

For Beatty, Governor Livingston appears to 
have entertained a high regard. In a letter of the 
5th of February, 1785, he says, " Make my compli- 
ments to Col. Beatty, as honest a member, I 
believe, as there ever was in the first Congress." 

In the course of this year I again find Living- 
ston contributing to Collins's newspaper. These 
short pieces, thrown off in his rare moments of 
leisure, which he complains he had no time to 
revise, and which, as specimens of composition, 
might be found far from faultless, had a most 
salutary effect in preserving, in a healthy state, 
the tone of public opinion, and in gradually pre- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 387 

paring the way for those changes which the spirit 
of reciprocal concession not long afterwards ef- 
fected. On every question where the good of the 
whole demanded sacrifices from the separate 
parts, Governor Livingston is always to be found 
advocating those measures requisite to support 
the interest and dignity of the Federal Union. 
The punctual attendance of the delegates in 
Congress, the contributing of the State quotas to 
defray the national debt, the raising troops to 
garrison the western posts ; all these he earnestly 
urged and advocated in his conversation, in his 
letters, and in his printed essays. Danger at that 
time was apprehended to the country from causes 
precisely the reverse of those out of which it has 
arisen on more recent occasions. The confede- 
ration was then at the mercy of each State : of 
later days it has been feared by wise and good 
men, that in cases of conflicting interest, the 
rights of the constituent portions might receive 
too little regard from the power of the whole 
union. 

In March of this year, Livingston was invited to 
become a member of the Whig Society of New- 
York. In October, he was re-elected governor by 
38 votes out of 43 : General Dayton being the 
rival candidate.* 

In January, 1785, Governor Livingston was 
nominated in Congress, by Mr. Gerry, as one of 

• Vid. Min. of Joint Meeting. 



388 THE LIFE OF 

the commissioners to superintend the construction 
of the Federal buildings, which it was then in 
contemplation to erect. As he might be con- 
sidered a party interested in the question, it being 
a part of the commissioners' duty to determine 
whether the buildings should be situated in Penn- 
sylvania or New-Jersey, this was a flattering 
compliment to his integrity ; but the office was not 
to his taste, and he declined it in the following 
characteristic letter to Charles Stewart, at this 
time a delegate in Congress from New-Jersey. 

" Elizabethtown, 5th February, 1785. 
" Sir, 
" I this moment received your kind letter of the 
31st of January, informing me that I was in the 
nomination, among a number of other gentlemen, 
as a commissioner for the erection of the Federal 
buildings ; that I had been nominated by Mr. Gerry 

" I shall never refuse to serve my country in any 
department for which I think myself qualified ,• nor 
shall I ever esteem any office dishonourable that 
Congress can be presumed inclined to vest me 
with. At the same time I shall always (and that 
always at my time of life can be of no long dura- 
tion), make it a point of conscience not to accept 
of any appointment which I cannot execute with 
honour to myself, and justice to the common- 
wealth. The one proposed 1 know that I cannot. 
In all the bargains that ever 1 made, I suppose, 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 389 

upon a moderate computation, that I have been 
imposed upon ninety-nine times in a hundred. 
Mankind not having mehorated in point of in- 
tegrity during the war, what should I not have 
to apprehend in deahng upon so large a scale as 
that of contracting for the erection of the Federal 
buildings. Draw your own inference, sir, and 
never more think of me relative to the present 
question. . 

* * * * . * * 

" 1 am, (fee. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

On the 23d of June, upon the nomination of Mr. 
Stewart, who made it, as he says, because "I 
thought you chalked out by God Almighty as the 
most proper person to be our minister at the 
Hague, and without any design to compliment or 
flatter you," Livingston was elected by Congress 
to succeed Mr. Adams as minister plenipotentiary 
at the court of Holland, in opposition to Benjamin 
Harrison and Edward Rutledge, whose names 
were also given in. I do not know, however, that 
there was any rivalry on the part of the candidates. 
Rutledge subsequently declined the office. 

The election was highly gratifying to Livingston, 
and as he says himself, in a letter on the subject, a 
diplomatic situation at the Hague would have 
been more agreeable to him, both on account of 
his familiarity with the language, and the acquaint- 
ances he had already formed there, than at any 



390 THE LIFE OF 

other court of Europe. Tempted by the offer, he 
for a short time wavered. But ambition, never 
with him a ruhng passion, was counteracted by the 
leeUng of advancing age, and by the fear of being 
thought indifferent to the affectionate confidence 
so many years reposed in him by the State of New- 
Jersey. Influenced by these motives, he dechned 
the appointment. 

During the spring of this year, Mrs. Livingston, 
who had been an invaUd for some time, and who con- 
tinued such till her death, went to Lebanon, in the 
State of New-York, hoping to derive some benefit 
from its waters, which were even then crowded by 
the believers in their virtue ; and here, although it 
is of a later date, may be most properly intro- 
duced a letter to her from her husband, in answer to 
one in which she had reproached him for not oftener 
writing. It shows with what tender solicitude he 
watched over her health, and how little the first 
warmth of his affection was abated by years of 
absence and absorbing occupation. 

" Trenton, 4th March, 1786. 
" My dear, dear Susan, 
" Considering that for near a fortnight after I 
arrived here, I was so indisposed, as scarcely to be 
able to hold a pen in my hand, and that notwith- 
standing my indisposition, I wrote you two letters 
before I received yours of the 27th February, which 
came to my hands this day, and that during all that 
time I was every day anxious in inquiring after your 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 391 

health from everybody that came from our part of 
the country, you have greatly distressed me by as- 
cribing my silence to my v^^ant of affection for you. 

****** 

" P.S. If I was to live to the age of Methusalem, 
I believe I should not forget a certain flower that 
I once saw in a certain garden ; and however that 
flower may have since faded, towards the evening 
of that day, I shall always remember how it 
bloomed in the morning ; nor shall I ever love it 
the less for that decay which the most beautiful 
and fragrant flowers are subject to in the course 
of nature. I repeat it in this postscript, that I love 
you most affectionately, and when I return I will 
by my attentions and assiduities give you the 
greatest demonstrations possible of the sincerity 
of this my declaration. After this, I hope you 
will not so far forget your friend and lover, as not 
to acquaint him as often as you conveniently can 
of the state of your health, which I still hope and 
pray may be perfectly restored." 

In the summer of 1785, Joel Barlow,* then re- 
siding at Hartford, entertaining the intention of 
pubhshing a volume of American poetry, applied 
to Mr. Livingston for assistance. The latter fur- 
nished him with some of his earlier pieces, but 1 
am uncertain whether the editor's design was ever 

* By a letter from Elias Boudinot to Governor Livingston, 
dated 25th November, 1782, it appears that Mr. Barlow bad then 
his Vision of Columbus in MS. 



392 THE LIFE OF 

• 

put in execution. About the same time Living- 
ston was chosen an honorary member of the Phil- 
adelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, 
an appointment more grateful to his taste than his 
recent diplomatic honours ; and in October, he was 
again elected governor by 38 out of 40 votes.* 

Livingston's contributions to Colhns's paper, writ- 
ten during this, but which were not printed till the 
commencement of the next year, and published 
under the title of " The Primitive Whig," are 
among the last of his newspaper essays which it is 
now believed possible to identify ; and in taking 
leave of this portion of my subject, the following 
is inserted as a specimen of these compositions. 

" I have seen, and i have not seen. 

" I have seen several of our Assemblies attempt- 
ing public economy, by lowering the salaries of the 
officers of government, and other littlenesses of 
the like nature, and costing the public more in 
their own wages, by the time they spent in making 
the reduction (which ought not to have been made) 
than it finally amounted to. But I have not seen 
one of them calling to a serious account the 
sheriffs who have defrauded us of hundreds by 
* * * or the commissionaries for forfeited es- 
tates, who have plundered us of thousands by 
trading with the money, or converting it into real 
estate, and afterwards paying us at a great depre- 

* Vid. Minutes of Joint Meeting. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 393 

ciation. Why are not these people immediately 
compelled to pay this money according to the 
value at which they received it. This would really 
be an object worthy a legislature. This would 
go a great way to fill the fiscal coffers, and to ease 
the poor citizen in his taxes. 

" I have seen tories members of Congress, 
judges upon tribunals, tories representatives in our 
Legislative councils, tories members of our As- 
semblies : — I have not seen them bribed with Brit- 
ish money, nor was such actual vision necessary 
for my conviction that they were so. I have seen 
our soldiers marching barefoot through snow and 
over ice : — I have not seen them duly recompensed 
for it ; nor America so grateful for such the inexpres- 
sible hardships they suffered, as I thought she would 
have been. 1 have seen Congress recommending 
to the several States such salutary measures as 
would have been of infinite benefit to the union 
to have adopted : — I have not seen the States adopt 
these measures. I have seen commerce declining, 
and worse than declining, prosecuted to our undo- 
ing; luxury increasing, idleness prevailing, self- 
interest predominating, and patriotism languishing. 
But when shall I see the true spirit of repubhcans 
emerging from its late ignoble torpor, and blazing 
out with the same splendour, the same world-aston- 
ishing corruscations with which it so gloriously 
illustrated the first morning of its appearance. 

" 1 have seen justices of the peace, who were a 

D DD 



394 THE LIFE OP 

• 

burlesque upon all magistracy. Justices illiterate,* 
justices partial, justices groggy, justices courting 
popularity to be chosen Assembly-men, and jus- 
tices encouraging litigiousness. But 1 have not 
seen any joint-meeting sufficiently cautious against 
appointing such justices of the peace. 

" 1 have seen four times as many taverns in the 
State as are necessary. These superabundant 
taverns are continually haunted by idlers. These 
taverns are confessedly so many nuisances — all 
well-regulated governments abolish them, and yet 
1 have not seen any of our courts that license them 
willing to retrench the supernumerary ones. 

" 1 have seen the Regency of Algiers making 
a cruel and unprovoked war upon the United 
States. 1 have not seen the secret hand of Great 
Britain exciting those infidels to such war, to ren- 
der her own bottome the more necessary to carry 
on our commerce, and for other purposes, by the 
said act intended. 

" 1 have seen paper money emitted by a Legis- 
lature that solemnly promised to redeem it, that 
afterwards depreciated it themselves — and I there- 
fore beheve that I shall never see the honest re- 
demption of it. 1 have seen Assemblies enacting 

* Among Governor Livingston's loose Mem. for the year 
1780, I find the following, endorsed, " A Sample of Justice A.'s 
English." " We must have spirituable laws against the tories, 
and level largely on their properties — if they take off a whig, 
we must retolerate upon them, for the poor whigs are obliged to 
leave their habitations and live in distressed places." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 395 

laws amending the practice in the courts of jus- 
tice, but I have not yet seen that practice really 
amended by them. I have seen, since our revo- 
lution, tories promoted to offices of trust and profit 
to the exclusion of whigs ; but 1 have never seen 
the man who dared to avow either the propriety or 
the justice of such promotion. 1 have seen hun- 
dreds paying their debts with continental money 
at the depreciated rate of above sixty for one; 
but how many have I seen that had too much 
integrity to avail themselves of the subterfuge for 
dishonesty which the law unintentionally afforded 
them; and instead of infringing the golden rule, 
though protected by the chicanery of human edicts 
to sin against it, nobly disdained to violate the dic- 
tates of their consciences, and against hght, and 
knowledge, and gospel, to defraud their neighbour 
of his due ! How many ? Not enough to consti- 
tute a legal jury. 

" I have seen Congress necessitated to borrow 
money from France and Holland ; but I have not 
seen the States take proper measures to discharge 
their proportion of these engagements. I have 
not seen any of our * * * American officers, 
who were during the war posted on our lines for 
the express purpose of preventing the illegal com- 
merce with the enemy, themselves carrying on this 
infamous traffic. I will not tell all that I have seen. 
The veracity of a historian is often called in ques- 
tion when he speaks of disorders in government 
that appear incredible. He often relates facts that, 



396 THE LIFE OF 

because extraordinary, though true, are received as 
exaggeration and romance. I hope for the future 
to see virtue and patriotism unmixed and unadul- 
terated with private interest. I hope to see our 
independence gained at the expense of much blood 
and treasure, for ever and ever established in right- 



These urgent but homely appeals to the patriot- 
ism, the virtue, and the intelhgence of the people 
have now ceased to possess value, and perhaps in- 
terest ; but 1 should do little justice to the subject 
of this memoir, did 1 not notice the truth, the fear- 
lessness, and the love of country which breathe 
throughout them all. 

In the early part of the year 1786, I find Gov- 
ernor Livingston, with his customary zeal in the 
cause of knowledge and improvement, urging upon 
the Assembly the petition of Michaux, who had 
been sent out as a botanist by the French govern- 
ment, praying permission to buy thirty acres of 
land in New-Jersey, to be used as a garden for 
promoting that branch of science, both here and 
abroad. An act passed 3d March, 1786, author- 
izing the purchase of two hundred acres.* We 

* " Andreas Michaux qui ex Persia redux ubi per sexennium 
plantas perquisierat hue usque incognitas, missus in Americam a 
Rege Ludovico XVI. et artium fautore Dangevillseo post repetitas 
per annos duodecim ex Carolina ad littus Hudsonianum itinera- 
tiones non sine vita; periculo, &c. &c." What resulted from the 
purchase of this garden, or whether it was effected, I know not. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 397 

have seen too many circumstances of a similar 
kind to be surprised at this instance of the enUght- 
ened ardour and superiority to all local and na- 
tional prejudices on the part of the French in their 
pursuit of science. They allow no barrier of cli- 
mate, or language, or hostile feehng to impede their 
progress — nor are they ashamed to add to their 
rich stores, the contributions of those who may be 
in many respects poorer than themselves. 

The Legislature was called together in the 
spring, by Mr. Van Cleve, the speaker, to meet at 
New-Brunswick. It was expected that the ques- 
tion of a new emission of bills would be brought 
before them, the inundation of the country by 
paper money being even at that late day regarded 
by many as a political panacea. The opinion of 
Governor Livingston on this subject is thus ex- 
pressed in the following letter, the tone of which, 
when we remember how great a sufferer he had 
been by the depreciated currency, may be consid- 
ered as singularly just and moderate. 

" TO BENJAMIN VAN CLEVE. 

" Elizabethtown, 5th May, 1786. 
" Dear Sir, 

****** 

" For my part I shall attend your notifica- 
tion (for the meeting of the Legislature) with 



Michaux published an Histoire des Chenes de L'Amerique in 1801, 
and his Flora BoreaU-Americana was edited in 1803, by his son. 
The above extract is from the Preface to the latter work. 



398 THE LIFE OF 

pleasure, and I hope we shall all be impartially in- 
dined to do whatever appears to us most advan- 
tageous to the public interest ; for abstracted from 
that, or in opposition to it, I would see all such 
popularity as must be acquired at the horrid ex- 
pense of sacrificing one's conscience, and the na- 
tional honour, and the public faith, and our fed- 
eral obligations, and the ultimate and real interest 
of this State to — the devil. 

" But if we should prove to be so publicly virtuous 
as first to comply with the requisitions of Con- 
gress, as far as with our utmost exertions we are 
able, and then emit such a sum of paper currency 
as would not prove inconsistent with that compli- 
ance, and upon such a fund for its redemption as 
afforded a reasonable prospect of its maintaining 
its credit, and not enable every knave to defraud 
his neighbour; I think the petitioners for paper 
money ought to be gratified, and that such a mea- 
sure would really relieve many honest people in 
distress, who ought undoubtedly to be relieved, as 
far as can be eflfected without injury to the com- 
monwealth. 

" I am, kc. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

The great question of the abolition of slavery 
and the slave trade, began now to be seriously dis- 
cussed,* and it is not a little to the credit both of 

* The first act passed in this country directed against the sys- 
tem of slavery was passed by Pennsylvania in February, 1780, 
but a considerable interval elapsed before the next step was taken. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 399 

the justice and sagacity of the northern States, 
that at so early a period, and Avhile surrounded by 
so many difficulties, external and internal, they 
should have had the courage to attack a system, 
then closely interwoven with our whole domestic 
policy; which a legislation of forty years has but 
just succeeded in eradicating from our own State, 
and which yet presses with all its accumulated per- 
plexity and danger upon our southern brethren. 
This subject had, as we have already seen, attracted 
Livingston's attention eight years before, and the 
following letter thus expresses his unabated sym- 
pathy in the good cause. 

" Elizabethtown, 26th June, 1786. 
« Sir, 
" The institution of the society in New- York for 
promoting the emancipation of slaves, &;c. never 
came to my knowledge till this day, when I was hon- 
oured with the present of a pamphlet, containing 
a dialogue concerning the slavery of the Africans, 
and the rules of the said society. By a rule of 
the quarterly meeting of the said society on the 
10th of November, 1785,1 find that any person 
desiring to be admitted a member shall apply to 
the standing committee, kc. If by any person it is 
intended to comprehend gentlemen of other states, 
as well as the citizens of New-York (as from the 
liberality of sentiment of a society that originates 
so glorious a design as that of promoting the 
emancipation of any part of the human race, 1 



400 THE LIFE OF 

would fondly hope it is), I would most ardently wish 
to become a member of it; and provided I can 
succeed in this my wish, according to the rules of 
the society respecting their mode of election, 1 
can safely promise them that neither my tongue, 
nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote 
the abolition of what to me appears so inconsist- 
ent with humanity and Christianity, and so inevita- 
bly perpetuating of an indelible blot, with all the 
nations of Europe, upon the character of those 
who have so strongly asserted the unalienable 
rights of mankind, and whose conflict in the de- 
fence of those rights it has pleased Providence to 
crown with such signal (and to all human appear- 
ance unexpected) triumphant success. May the 
great and the equal Father of the human race, 
who has expressly declared his abhorrence of op- 
pression, and that he is no respecter of persons, 
succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the 
heavy burdens^ to let the oppressed go free^ and to break 
every yoke. 

" 1 am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston." 

Nor was his co-operation in the cause confined to 
mere expressions of sympathy. In the next year, 
"in consideration," as the bill of manumission runs, 
" of my regard for the natural liberties of mankind, 
and in order to set the example, as far as my volun- 
tary manumission of slaves may have any influ- 
ence on others," he emancipated the only two 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 401 

slaves he had, and took the resolution never to 
own another. He also lent his influence to enhst 
the Legislature of his State in the matter, and was 
so far successful, that on the 2d March, 1786, they 
commenced their operations on the subject by an 
act to prevent the importation of slaves, &c. The 
following letter to Mr. James Pemberton, of Phila- 
delphia, a member of that rehgious society whose 
efforts in this cause have placed posterity under a 
load of obligation to their enlightened wisdom and 
untiring zeal, refers to an application made in 
1788, to the Assembly of IN ew- Jersey, in this behalf, 
by Messrs Emlyn and Offlee. 

" Elizabethtown, 21st December, 1788 
" Esteemed Friend, 

# .i£ . ^ ^ tU, jp 

"Tf" "Tt* "Jv "TT vn 

" You have doubtless learnt from them how far 
they succeeded in their application to our Legisla- 
ture — 1 am sorry that their wishes were not more 
extensively answered. * * * With respect to 
slave-holding, our Legislature, shortly after the re- 
volution, committed a most fatal error, to prevent 
which I exerted my utmost endeavours, but with- 
out success. They confiscated these unhappy 
people as the forfeited property of certain delin- 
quents, and deposited the proceeds arising from 
the sales in the public treasury. This was giving 
a greater sanction to legitimate the abominable 
practice than any thing that could be adduced for 
its support under the old government, in which 

E E E 



402 THE LIFE OF 

that unaccountable doctrine rather depended upon 
custom than positive law. 

^ % w ^ % ^ 

" Believe me to be your sincere and respectful 
friend, 

"WiL. Livingston." 

At no period of our history have the prospects 
of the union worn so unpromising an appearance 
as in the year 1786. The bond of a common danger 
no longer existed ; the confederation had failed to 
command respect or affection. A sufficient repre- 
sentation in Congress could scarcely be secured 
— the debts of the States, as well as of the Federal 
government, were yet to be paid — the credit of the 
country was every day declining, and what was 
more alarming than all, a spirit of despondency 
and distrust of the future destinies of the country, 
as appears by what we have of the correspond- 
ence of the day, had seized upon some of its 
most prominent statesmen. Governor Livingston 
largely partook of this alarm, so well justified by 
appearances as to have infected Washington and 
Jay.* In a letter of the 22d December, to Mr. 
Houston, who had previously been a delegate from 
New-Jersey, he says, " I hope I am neither enthu- 
siastic nor superstitious, but 1 have strange forebod- 
ings of calamitous times, and that those times are 
not very remote." Again, in a letter of the 17th 
February, 17 87, to the Hon. Elijah Clarke, he writes, 

* Pitkin, vol. ii. p. 216, and seq. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 403 

« I am really more distressed by the posture of 
our public* affairs, than I ever was by the most 
gloomy appearances during the late war. We do 
not exhibit the virtue that is necessary to support 
a'republican government; and without the utmost 
exertions of the more patriotic part of the com- 
munity, and the blessing of God upon their ex- 
ertions, I fear that we shall not be able, for ten 
years from the date of this letter, to support that 
independence which has cost us so much blood 
and treasure to acquire. 

" I pray for the disappointment of my fore- 
bodings, but God will not smile upon pubHc 
iniquity, nor upon that astonishing ingratitude 
wherewith we requite his marvellous interposition 
to deliver us from the bondage to which our 
enemies meditated to reduce us. * * * * 

"Our situation, sir, is truly deplorable, and 
without a speedy alteration of measures, I doubt 
whether you and I shall survive the existence of 
that liberty for which we have so strenuously 
contended." 

These gloomy anticipations were fortunately not 
realized. These " utmost exertions" were about 
being put forth. The spirit of compromise had 
already commenced its beneficial career — that 
spirit of compromise, that just and liberal sense of 
mutual interest for which we have shown ourselves 
conspicuous in all hazardous times — which is the 
surest cement of our compact; which is never 



404 THE LIFE OF 

• 

even partially forsaken without engendering dis- 
content and animosity, and the final abandonment 
of which will be the signal, perhaps the only cer- 
tain signal, for the dismemberment of the union. 

Virginia, always prominent in every measure 
connected with the welfare of the republic, had 
already (16tli, October, 1786) appointed commis- 
sioners for the purpose of revising the articles of 
confederation, and New-Jersey was the first (23d 
November) to imitate her example.* The follow- 
ing letter to Livingston, from Governor Randolph, 
enclosing a copy of the Virginia act above men- 
tioned, may be read with interest, as showing the 
deep anxiety that penetrated the minds of all think- 
ing men at this period. 

" Richmond, December 1st, 1786. 
" Sir, 
" I feel a peculiar satisfaction in forwarding to 
your Excellency the enclosed act of our Legisla- 
ture. As it breathes a spirit truly federal, and con- 
tains an effort to support our general government, 
which is now reduced to the most awful crisis, 
permit me to solicit your Excellency's co-operation 
at this trying moment. 

* On the 23d November, as stated in the text, the Comicil and 
Assembly of New-Jersey elected David Brearley, W. C. Houston, 
Wm. Paterson, and John Neilson, delegates to the Convention. 
On the 18th of the following May, they joined to the above, omit- 
ting Neilson, Governor Livingston and Abraham Clark, and on 
the 5th Jmie, Jonathan Dayton was added to the representation. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 405 

" I have the honour to be your Excellency's most 
obedient humble servant, 

(Signed) "Edm. Randolph." 

In another letter, dated December 6th, 1786, 
Governor Randolph says, " My anxiety for the well- 
being of the Federal government will not suffer 
me to risk so important a consideration upon 
the safety of a single letter. Your Excellency will 
therefore excuse me for again intruding on you 
with the enclosed act of our Legislature, and re- 
peating the request urged in my letter of the 1st 
instant, that you would give a zealous attention to 
the present American crisis." 

Governor Livingston had long lamented the in- 
efficiency of the government under the confedera- 
tion, to regulate (that " word of fear") matters of 
national concern, and there can be but little doubt 
that to his influence is in a considerable degree to 
be ascribed the alacrity and unanimity with which 
New-Jersey took every step to facilitate the forma- 
tion and adoption of the proposed constitution. 
The different States, one by one, acceded to the 
measure of calling a convention, and the events 
which belong to the time, between the period 
where we have now arrived, and the assembling of 
that body, will be compressed into as brief a space 
as the subject permits. 

In October, 1786, Livingston was continued in 
the governor's chair by 38 votes out of 46; Abra- 
ham Clarke being the candidate of the minority.* 

• Vid. Min. of Joint Meeting. 



406 THE LIFE OF 

In January, 1787, Governor Livingston was ap- 
plied to by his friend, the Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey, 
whose name has more than once occurred in the 
preceding pages, to assist Mr. Jedediah Morse in 
obtaining for his geography, which he was about 
to pubhsh, the requisite facts respecting the State 
of New-Jersey. Livingston undertook with alac- 
rity the task allotted to him, and after considera- 
ble exertion, was so successful as to obtain com- 
paratively accurate information respecting his own 
State. He also bestowed time and attention upon 
the style of the work, the MS. of which was sub- 
mitted to him, and there are among his papers 
several sheets filled with verbal and grammatical 
corrections of it. The work, which deserves no- 
tice as the first attempt of any magnitude to ex- 
hibit a correct view of the extent and resources 
of the union, was finally published at Elizabethtown 
in 1789, and dedicated to Governor Livingston. 

The following extract of a letter from the sub- 
ject of this memoir to one of his grandchildren, 
may be here inserted. It shows how easily his 
thoughts reverted to private life, when relieved 
from the weight of public occupation, and in how 
full and warm a tide his best affections still flowed, 
unchilled by the strife of party or the selfishness of 
power. 

"Elizabethtown, 18th January, 1787. 
"My dear , 

" I have receive.d your letter of the 3d of this 
month, and very glad was I to receive it, because I 
began to suspect that my dear grandson had. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 407 

among all the pleasures and amusements (and I 
hope the studies) of New-York, totally forgotten 
the old gentleman at Liberty Hall. But I am most 
disagreeably disappointed in those my surmises by 
that same epistle of yours. 

" I hope that by this time, you are recovered 
from that disagreeable disorder called the rash,. 
with which you say you was troubled, and that you 
will never be rash yourself. Certain it is, that the 
ailment in your heels must keep you from the 
dancing-school, as I presume the true discipline of 
that seminary of hops and capers depends as much 
upon the use of the heels as it does upon that of 
the toes. Turn out your toes, sir ! — that's what the 
dancing-master says much oftener than he does 
his prayers. I am obliged to you for mentioning 
to me Mr. Hunt's directions for catching fish in 
their beds of spawn. But at the same time I hope 
you do not believe that grandpapa wants any in- 
structions from a West Chester man how to catch 
fresh water fish. Why, he understands it better than 
he does the affairs of government. Nor do I think 
that fish ought to be caught at all in their beds of 
spawn. There is a very humane prohibition in the 
law of Moses against taking the dam of birds 
while guarding her eggs or young ones; and I 
think that the like tender-heartedness ought to be 
extended to the mother of the spawn of fishes ; for 
as soon as ever she is caught, her spawn are de- 
voured by those fish of prey which she is so indus- 
triously employed in chasing from the spot in which 



408 THE LIFE OF 

she has deposited it, and which she defends with 
perhaps as much maternal affection as that with 
which a human mother watches over the safety of 
her children. And now, my dear little fellow, with 
what can I better conclude than by saying, fear God, 
honour your parents (for, thank Heaven, we have 
no king to honour), love the United States, mind 
your books, be yourself a man of honour, and 
ever scorn to be guilty of a mean action ; and upon 
these conditions I am, as long as I live, your most 
affectionate grandfather, 

" WiL. Livingston." 

To the amusement of fishing, as might be col- 
lected from this letter, he was exceedingly attached; 
and during the war, while he could not cultivate 
his garden, it furnished almost his only relaxa- 
tion. 

About this time, also, Governor Livingston ex- 
erted himself actively, and devoted considerable 
time in a spirit of rigid honesty and enlarged lib- 
erality, to obtain for Mr. Kempe (previously attor- 
ney-general of the province of New-York, who 
had espoused the royal side of the revolutionary 
contest, and was at this time in London), such 
documentary proof of the value of the forfeited 
lands which he had before owned in New-Jersey, 
as might enable him to obtain a compensation 
from the British commissioners appointed to liqui- 
date these claims. The following extract from one 
of the numerous letters written by him on this 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 409 

subject, will show the motives which influenced 
him to take this troublesome task in behalf of an 
individual with whom he could have so few points 
of common feeling. 

" Elizabethtown, 3d March, 1787. 
« Sir, 
" 1 cannot think of charging you for the great 
seal, as you have had so much trouble about pro- 
curing these documents ; and my fear is, that after 
all, they may arrive too tardy to prove of any ser- 
vice to you. As to my trouble, I pray you not to 
think of it. There was a period not many years 
since, when I could not have spared the time ; but 
since your Enghsh lads have left us — (I mean those 
of them who came after the fashion of vi et armis^ 
and in the way of forcible entry, though they made 
but a wretched hand of the detainer, for as to 
many others in the civil hne, and who then lived 
among us, and have since been obliged to leave us, 
I really regret their departure from America,) — 
since that time, I say, I have been able to return 
to my library and rural solitude, which I enjoy with 
infinitely greater satisfaction than any posts or 
titles which it is in the power of men to confer 
upon me: and if I find greater pleasure in any 
worldly occupation, than I do in books and gar- 
dening, it is in serving my friends ; and 1 hope, to a 
considerable degree, even my enemies too. If any 
thing further occurs to you, sir, respecting your in- 
terest among us, in which 1 can possibly be of the 

FFF 



410 THE LIFE OF 

least service to you, pray communicate it with the 
freedom of friend to friend, and besides the plea- 
sure of serving you, I shall have the additional one 
of singularity (of which some people are very fond), 
that is, as the world goes, of being sincere in one's 
professions, and fulfilling one's promises. God 
bless you and all your family, which will be of 
greater advantage to you and them than the com- 
pliments of any man. My principal secretary of 
state, who is one of my daughters, is gone to New- 
York to shake her heels at the balls and assem- 
bhes of a metropolis, which might as well be more 
studious of paying its taxes, than of instituting ex- 
pensive diversions. I mention this absence of my 
secretary to atone for the slovenly hand-writing of 
this letter, and of my enclosed certificate, because 
she is as celebrated for writing a good hand as her 
father is notorious for scribbling a bad one. 
" I am, &c. 

" WiL. Livingston."* 

But at the same time that he was performing 
this friendly office for Mr. Kempe, he says, writing 
to his son, who had requested of him, for a third 
person, a letter of introduction to a Canadian 

* Livingston's hand-writing, as he confesses in this letter, was 
intolerably bad. His early letter-books are, it is true, written in a 
Tery clerkly, hand ; but afterwards he degenerated so much in 
this respect that General Washington has been heard to say, that 
when he received a letter from Governor Livingston, he called 
around him all his staff to assist him in deciphering it. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 411 

gentleman, after absolutely refusing to comply with 
the request, " such a measure might eventually give 
rise to a report, that I was concerned in a clandes- 
tine trade with the British of Canada, and 1 would 
rather form commercial connections with that mis- 
erable part of the human species at the Cape of 
Good Hope, called Hottentots." So violent was 
the hostility engendered by the war, and so scru- 
pulously tender was he of his reputation. 

On the 14th of April, in this year, Catharine, the 
second daughter of Governor Livingston, was mar- 
ried at her father's house, to Matthew Ridley, of 
Baltimore, a gentleman of whom I may here be 
permitted to say a few words, both as partially 
connected with my subject, and with the history of 
the country, and also as being one of the very few 
inhabitants of the mother country, who at an early 
period of our revolutionary contest, while the fate 
of the colonies was still wholly undecided, entered 
fearlessly, and with ardor into their cause. 

Matthew Ridley belonged to the old English 
border family of that name, originally from Tyne- 
dale, Northumberland, which is well known as 
claiming among its descendants the celebrated 
Bishop of London. His biographer, Gloucester 
Ridley, and the author of the Tales of the Genii, 
may also be mentioned as among its members. 

Mr. Ridley came to America, for the first time, 
in the year 1770, and shortly afterwards estab- 
Ushed himself at Baltimore as a merchant. His 
private affairs compelled him to return to London 



412 THE LIFE OF 

• 

in the summer of 1775, but he carried with him a 
strong interest in the cause of the colonies, and 
watched their fortunes with an ardent sympathy. 
He was a member of the committee organized at 
London for the rehef of American prisoners. In 
September, 1778, he went over to France, and es- 
tabhshed himself at Nantes in the American com- 
mission business. 

In April, 1779, Mr. Ridley sailed for America 
and returned to Baltimore, the place of his former 
residence. In November, 1781, having been ap- 
pointed by the State of Maryland its agent, to make 
a loan in Europe, he took ship for France, and suc- 
ceeding, as before, in evading the British cruisers, 
landed safely at Brest. In July, 1782, he nego- 
tiated a loan of six hundred thousand guilders for his 
State, with the Messrs. Van Staphorst, of Amster- 
dam. In 1783, he was associated by Mr. Thomas 
Barclay with himself, in the commission to settle 
the accounts of the pubHc officers abroad. In 
this capacity, however, he never acted. In March, 
1784, he left France for England, and in the 
summer of 1786, returned to Baltimore. He died 
at that place on the 13th of November, 1789, at 
the age of 40. During the period that Mr. Ridley 
was abroad, he was much at Paris, and constantly 
associated with our ministers there, while at the 
same time he was in correspondence with Messrs. 
Robert and Gouverneur Morris, Chase, McHenry, 
and others. The following letter from Adams to 
him is connected with the events of that time. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 413 

"The Hague, October 8th, 1782. 
" Sir, 
" 1 received your favour of the 29th ult. with its 
enclosures, night before last. Great news indeed 
— enclosed is an answer. This day at noon 1 am 
to meet the lords, the deputies of their H. M., to 
sign the treaty. It has been delayed some time, 
in order to have the silver boxes for the seals made 
with suitable elegance and dignity, for the taste 
of these magnificent repubhcans. Too much of 
the dignity of this country, you know, consists in 
silver, and gold, and diamonds. As there will be 
five or six of these boxes, I hope Congress will 
coin them up to carry on the war. 
" With great regard, 

" Your humble servant, 

"J. Adams." 

The following extracts from Mr. Ridley's journal 
may not be without interest, as bearing upon the 
unfortunate dissensions of our foreign ministers at 
that time. 

^ " 1782. Tuesday, Oct. 29th. Called to see Mr. 
Adams, — dined with him. He is much pleased 
with Mr. Jay. Went in the morning to see Dr. 
Franklin. Did not know of Mr. Adams' arrival. 
Spoke to Mr. A. about making his visit to Dr. F. 
He told me it was time enough ; represented to 
him the necessity of a meeting : he replied that 
there was no necessity ; that, after the usage he 



414 THE LIFE OF 

had received from him, he could not bear to go 
near him. I told him whatever the differences 
were, he would do wrong to discover any to the 
world, and that it might have a bad effect on our 
affairs at this time ; he said the Dr. might come to 
him ; I told him it was not his place ; the last 
comer always paid the first visit; he rephed the 
Dr. was to come to him, he was first in the com- 
mission. 1 asked him how the Dr. was to know he 
was there unless he went to him. He replied that 
was true, he did not think of that, and would go. 
Afterwards, when pulling on his coat, he said he 
would not, he could not bear to go where the Dr. 
was ; with much persuasion I got him at length to 
go. He said he would do it, since 1 would have 
it so ; but I was always making mischief, and so 1 
should find." 

The following extract from the same journal, 
presents the more agreeable spectacle of good- 
humour and harmony. It relates to the discussions 
between our ministers and the English commis- 
sioners, on the subject of the fisheries, immediately 
before signing the preliminary articles of peace. 

« 1782. Friday, November 29th. Dined at Mr. 
Adams' — in good spirits; asked if he (Mr. A.) 
would take fish at dinner ? ' No,' laughingly, ' he 
had a pretty good meal of them to-day.' I told 
him 1 was glad to hear it, as I knew a small quan- 
tity would not satisfy him. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 415 

" In the evening I learned that every thing was 
going right, and that in all probability the whole 
would be finished to-morrow, off or on. I am well 
satisfied it will be on. All goes well, and we have 
all that can be wished. Mr. A. is well satisfied 

with Dr. F 's conduct, and says he has 

behaved well and nobly, particularly this day." 

In a long unofficial conversation, held between 
the Mareschal de Castries, Mr. Ridley, and Mr. 
Thomas Barclay, on the subject of commercial 
arrangements between France and America, there 
occurs the following language, which, made use of 
at such a time, enables us to form a very tolerable 
idea of the cahbre of the French statesman. 
" He (the Mareschal) replied, as to the contraband 
trade, it would be their business to prevent it; 
that he should make arrangements in the marine 
for that purpose, and added the remarkable ex- 
pression, "Nos colonies sont nos esclaves et il 
faut tacher d'en tirer le meilleur parti." Of this 
stamp were the ministers of Louis XVI., whose 
services finally brought their king to a scaffold, 
and drove the French nation into all the vice and 
horror of the revolution. 



416 THE LIFE OF 



CHAPTER XII. 

1787 — Livingston attends the Federal Convention — His Share in 
the proceedings of that Body — Ratification of the Constitution 
— Letter from Robert R. Livingston — Notices of him — Let- 
ter from Hamilton — Livingston receives Degree of LL.D. — 
Letter from Benjamin Harrison — Death of Mrs. Livingston — 
Livingston elected Governor for the last time — Dies, July 
1790 — His character. 

We have already seen the anxiety felt by Gov- 
ernor Livingston for the welfare of the union at 
this time, and it is easy to conjecture the alacrity 
with which he accepted the appointment, adding 
him to the delegates already nominated by New- 
Jersey to represent that State in the Federal Con- 
vention — the body destined to be equally our glory 
and our safeguard. 

Owing to the sitting of the Legislature, which 
required his presence, Livingston did not take his 
seat in the Convention till the 5th June, a week 
after they had entered upon the discussion of the 
objects of meeting; and from that time, with the 
exception of a necessary visit to " Liberty Hall," 
which was shortened by a pressing letter from his 
colleague Mr. Dayton, he was in constant attend- 
ance upon its deliberations.* 

* From the 5th June to the 2d July, Mr. Livingston, as ap- 
pears from a minute made by him, was in constant attendance 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 417 

The share which he took in them, however, 
it is now difficult to ascertain. " Mr. Livingston 
did not take his seat in the Convention," says Mr. 
Madison,* "till some progress had been made in 
the task committed to it, and he did not take any 
active part in the debates ; but he was placed on 
important committees, where it may be presumed 
he had an agency, and a due influence. He was 
personally unknown to many, perhaps most of the 
members,t but there was a predisposition in all to 
manifest the respect due to the celebrity of his 
name. The votes of New-Jersey corresponded 
generally with the plan offered by Mr. Paterson ; 
but the main object of that being to secure 
to the smaller States an equality with the larger 
in the structure of the government, in opposition 
to the outline previously introduced, which had a 
reversed object, it is difficult to say what was the 
degree of power to which there might be an ab- 
stract leaning. The two subjects, the structure of 
the government, and the quantum of power for it, 



with the exception of a single day. Then, on the appointment 
of the first grand committee, thinking perhaps that the report 
would not be made as soon as it was, he went home ; on the 
19th of July he returned, and was again a regular attendant until 
the close of its sessions. 

* MS. Letter of the 12th February, 1831. 

t There were but eight in the Convention who had been in 
Congress at the time of the declaration of independence, Gerry, 
Sherman, Morris, Wilson, Franklin, Clymer, Wythe, and Read. 

G G G 



418 THE LIFE OF 

were more or less inseparable in the minds of all, 
as depending a good deal the one on the other. 
After the compromise which gave the small 
States an inequality in one branch of the Legisla- 
ture, and the large States an inequality in the other 
branch, the abstract leaning of opinions would 
better appear. With those, however, who did not 
enter into debate, and whose votes could not be 
distinguished from those of their State colleagues, 
their opinions could only be known among them- 
selves or to their particular friends." 

The information contained in this letter is cor- 
roborated by the Journal of the Convention, and 
more especially by " The Secret Proceedings" of 
that body,* which leave no ground to believe that 
Mr. Livingston took any share of importance in its 
debates, though he was at the same time, as stated 
by Mr. Madison, usefully and actively employed. 
On the 21st August, we find him acting apparently 
as chairman of a committee appointed to consider 
the expediency of the assumption of the State 
debts by the Federal government, which reported 
in favour of the measure ; and on the 24th, chair- 
man of a committee to whom were committed 
certain portions of the draft of a constitution pre- 
viously reported by the committee of detail.f 

It may also be supposed that the proceedings of 
the New-Jersey delegation were generally sub- 

* Aibany, 1821. 

t Journal of the Convention, Boston, 1819, pp. 261,272, 276, 
285. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 419 

jected to his supervision, less from the claims of 
his station, than that affectionate respect with 
which he was regarded by his fellow-citizens ; and 
when, from the very imperfect but most interesting 
records which remain of the dehberations of this 
eminent body, we see how great was the diversity 
of opinion, how narrowly the members avoided the 
dangers by which they were surrounded, with what 
difficulty they shunned the scheme of a great na- 
tional government, and how hardly they fixed upon 
any plan, too much importance cannot be given to 
the conduct of those who, whether from local at- 
tachment or sounder views, advocated the rights of 
the States, and supported the mtegrity of their 
governments. The " Jersey plan," as it was then 
termed, arranged by the delegates from Connecti- 
cut, New-Jersey, and Delaware, and in part from 
Maryland,* and presented by Mr. Paterson, ex- 
tremely defective as it was in many points of view, 
still deserves all respect as the most prominent 
defence of the rights of the States — rights often 
carried to their utmost extent ; sometimes, it may 
be, pushed beyond their just limit, but which, when 
not demanded in a factious spirit, will ever find ar- 
dent defenders among those who wish to preserve 
in all its harmony and beauty our present consti- 
tution. 

Although Livingston must be supposed to have 

* Vid. Luther Martin's speech to the Legislature of Mary- 
land, prefixed to the " Secret Proceedings." 



420 THE LIFE OF 

belonged to this party, he was satisfied with the 
concessions of the majority ; and in September had 
the satisfaction of affixing his name to the national 
charter, immediately after which he returned to 
Elizabethtown. It cannot be regarded but as a 
happy termination to the public labours of a long 
hfe, that he should have had this opportunity of 
evincing in the most prominent manner his un- 
changed devotion to those principles for which he 
had risked, and would have sacrificed, every thing 
near and dear to him. In October, shortly after 
his return, he was again chosen governor by 47 
out of 48 votes. 

New-Jersey was the third State to ratify the new 
constitution, on the 18th December, 1787, being 
preceded only by Delaware and Pennsylvania, on 
the 7th and 12th of the same month, and Gov- 
ernor Livingston exulted in the unanimous vote by 
which it was adopted — a vote doubtless, in a mea- 
sure, owing to his personal influence with the mem- 
bers of the State Convention. The gratification 
he felt both in this and in the final ratification of 
the new charter of union, is expressed in many 
of his letters. Writing to Dr. Joshua Lathrop, of 
Connecticut, under date of the 2d of August, 1788, 
he says, 

" I thank you for your congratulations on the 
adoption of the new constitution by ten States, 
It was indeed real joy to me, who have long been 
anxious to see a more efficient rational govern- 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 421 

ment than that of the confederation. You will 
have heard, before this comes to your hands, that 
New- York has made the eleventh. Some of their 
anti-federalists died hard ; but since a pack of lazy 
fellows, mentioned in the gospel, who would not 
come to their work till the eleventh hour, received 
the same wages with those who came earlier, I 
believe we must forgive them." * * # * 

In his message to the Legislature, of the 29th 
of August, 1788, he says, 

" I most heartily congratulate you, gentlemen, 
on the adoption of the constitution proposed for 
the government of the United States, by the 
Federal Convention, and it gives me inexpressible 
pleasure that New-Jersey has the honour of so 
early and so unanimously agreeing to that form of 
national government, which has since been so 
generally applauded and approved of by the other 
States. We are now arrived to that auspicious 
period which, 1 confess, I have often wished that 
it might please Heaven to protract my life to see. 
Thanks to God that 1 have lived to see it." 

Governor Livingston scarcely lived to see the 
commencement of that great constitutional strug- 
gle which, originating with the commencement of 
the new order of things, cannot be said to have 
even yet terminated ; but there can be little doubt 
in the ranks of which party he would have enrolled 



422 THE LIFE OF 

himself. He speaks in several of his letters with 
considerable asperity of the opposition to the 
proposed constitution ; and it can scarcely be sup- 
posed that this opposition, although, after the 
formation of the present government, it certainly 
assumed a wholly different character, would ever 
have found him among its advocates. Had he 
lived, he would undoubtedly have attached himself 
to that party whose watch-word was " The Fede- 
ral Constitution ;" a party who, so long as led by 
men such as Washington and Jay, could never 
ha vie intentionally perpetrated injustice, or design- 
edly invaded the rights of others, — a body which, 
if the course of events has shown them to be 
deficient in political foresight — incorrect in their 
estimation of the genius of the government — too 
distrustful of the virtue and knowledge of the 
people, may fairly lay claim to as much integrity 
and patriotism as ever fell to the lot of the same 
number of men in any age or any country. 

After the adoption of the new form of govern- 
ment, Livingston took no immediate or active 
interest in the affairs of the union ; and though he 
continued to preside with equal fidelity over his 
own State, the demands which it made upon his 
attention were no longer all-engrossing, and he 
enjoyed in a greater degree the rural retirement 
he had so long coveted, but which had been so 
sparingly allowed him. His long-neglected folios 
were now once more dusted, and his workshop 
again occupied. A lathe and set of joiner's tools 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 423 

supplied him with exercise within doors, and he 
took much pride in the skill with which he used 
them. " Come with me," he said to his daughter, 
" come and see how rich 1 am in real estate — how 
many houses 1 own." She followed him into his 
office, and found the table covered with a quantity 
of wren-houses, of his own manufacture, and 
which were afterwards put up around the house, 
as trophies of his ingenuity. This, together with 
the cultivation of his garden, fishing, and the 
instruction of his grandson, occupied his leisure ; 
and had it not been for his domestic calamities 
and his own increasing infirmities, these last years 
would probably have been the happiest of his life. 
The following letter so well illustrates his occupa- 
tions at this time, that I am tempted to give it 
entire. 

" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

« Clermount, 15th Nov., 1787- 

" Dear Sir, 
"Having been informed that you are not suc- 
cessful in raising the green gage plumb, 1 send you 
two trees, from a stock that is remarkably hardy. 
I have now about twenty bearing trees, none of 
which are grafted, but are the ofspring of one that 
was raised from the stone, the shoots of which 
have furnished some hundred trees ; as those I 
now send you will do if planted in a loose soil. 
The general complaint is that the fruit drops 
without ripening. 1 do not find this to be the 



424 THE LIFE OF 

case with mine. I cannot help thinking that these 
trees, in most instances, suffer in common with a 
higher order of being from the ignorance of their 
physicians, who insist upon it that this disorder 
arises from too great a quantity of sap, or in other 
words from too much health, and accordingly 
direct a spare regimen, planting them in stiff soils, 
where they feed with difficulty ; and lest they should 
not suffer enough from this, they cut their roots, 
choke them with stones, bind their bodies with 
bandages, and even go so far as to beat them, as 
if they beheved the fruit of this tree, like that of 
religion, the ofspring of mortification. I have 
never yet heard that these prescriptions have been 
attended with success, and as they probably never 
will, it might not be amiss " for the college to 
alter them." 

" Except man, I know of no animal that suffers 
from a plethora, nor would he, unless luxury had 
provoked his appetite to exceed its natural bounds. 
All others acquire additional health and vigour 
from plenty of food; the same holds good of 
vegetables, whose seed and fruit are most perfect 
when a sufficiency of food is afforded them. The 
plum is in no soil a very luxuriant tree, its growth 
is slow, and when it begins to bear, it is generally 
very heavily laden; as the fruit grows large, it 
makes a demand upon the roots for more sap than 
they can readily furnish, more especially as the 
droughts prevail at the very time this requisition is 
made ; the circulation thus becoming more languid, 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 425 

the fruit withers and drops for want of nourishment. 
If this theory is just, the remedy must be the 
reverse of that usually prescribed. I have accord- 
ingly planted most of my plumbs in the richest 
part of my garden (the natural soil of which is a 
light loam upon a sharp sand) ; the ground about 
them has been annually manured and dug. My 
trees scarce ever fail to ripen as much fruit as they 
can bear ; and indeed this year, though carefully 
propped, many branches broke with its weight. I 
have some plumbs of different kinds on a hard clay, 
which neither yield so much, nor such good fruit, 
as those in my garden, besides that they take 
twice the time before they begin to bear. This 
convinces me that my theory is right, and has 
induced me to enlarge upon, in hopes (if it should 
not interfere with some system of your own) that 
it may be useful to you and your friends. 
" I am, dear sir, 
" With great respect and esteem, 

" Your most obdt. hum. servant, 

" R. R. Livingston." 

Robert R. Livingston, the father of the writer of 
the above letter, a grandson of the first proprietor 
of the manor, was a justice of the supreme court 
of the colony of New-York, and member of the 
Stamp-Act Congress, in 1765. His son, bearing 
the same name, was one of the most eminent 
members of the family to which he belonged. He 

HHH 



426 THE LIFE OF 

was born in New-York, in 1747, and entered 
King's College. On taking his first degree, in 
1765, excited, no doubt, by the stirring sounds of 
the political contest in which so many of his 
kinsmen were engaged, he delivered an oration 
in praise of liberty* He entered the office of his 
relative, the subject of this memoir, and not long 
after the expiration of his clerkship, in October, 
1773, was made recorder of his native city. In 
April, 1775, he was elected a member of the second 
continental Congress, but does not appear to have 
attended the sessions of that body until the spring 
of the next year. Immediately after taking his 
seat, his name appears on the journal as a promi- 
nent member, and in June he was placed upon 
the committee appointed to draft the Declaration 
of Independence. Shortly after this he left Phila- 
delphia, and was thus prevented from signing that 
document. Mr. Livingston does not appear to 
have been again a member of the national Legis- 
lature, until he was again returned by New-York, 
in 1780. 

In August, 1781, he was appointed secretary for 
foreign affairs, which station he held for nearly 
two years, when he was made chancellor of the 
State of New-York. In 1788, he was a member 
of the State Convention, which met at Pough- 
keepsie, to decide upon the constitution, and was 
among the ablest of those who urged its adoption. 

• Vid. Rivington's Gazette. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTOX. 427 

In the next year he wa.s rewarded for his efforts, 
by imvini; the pood fortune to admirn.stcr the 
constitutional oath of olHce to Washington, upon 
his inauguration as President 

In I BO 1, he was sent minister to tlie court of 
Franrf>, and assisted m negotiating the purchase 
of l^juLsiana. At tlie close of several years, 
passed in retirement at his seat at Clermont, on 
the Hudson River, Mr. Livinptton died on tiie 2()th 
Fr-hruary, 1HI3. Such are the principal incidents 
in tli<> lift; of this eminent man ; hut this hrief sk<>tch 
w<iul<l lie very impcrfecl, were I not to notice Ins 
literary tastes; his fondness for agriculture and its 
kindred pursuits ; and the ability displayed in tiie 
varied services whirli have identified his name 
witli the history of the country. 

The following extract of a letter from Governor 
Livin^stcm to one of his grandchildren, who had 
been his pupil, may here hiid a place, not f<»r the 
elegance of its Latinity. hut for the warmth and 
truth of the feelings it expresses. 

^A'EPOTI sue CHARISSIMO GULIRLMVS L1VIXG8TOX, 8.D. 

»* Majjna cum vf)luptate (mi anime) tuas 3tii 
Januarii accepi el perlegi ; non solum quia tuas, 
et a tc, scd pro^sertim quia in illis argumentum 
prebuisti validissimum c|uod studiis tuis diligenter 
inrumhis. Id me tamen a^gre hahet quod nunc te 
miiii adire .^a*vitia teinporis ohstaret. ilyems 
enim, hyemis que progenies, nix el glacics et pro- 
cello: frigusquo ; nc res modo gererctur prohibent. 



428 THE LIFE OF 

Quando autem solveretur tempus hyemale grata 
vice veris et neque jam stabulis gauderet pecus aut 
arator igni, nihil me potius erit quam officiosus 
ad me aditus tuus ; hilaresque hos dies (mi par- 
vule !) animante Deo, vel ambulando, venando, 
pisces captando, aut equitando carpemus," 

In June, 1788, Governor Livingston, at the ap- 
pHcation of Mr. Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia, 
who was then conducting the periodical entitled 
The American Museum, undertook to assist him 
as well by his recommendation, as by supplying 
him with contributions. During the course of this 
and the next year, he sent several essays, which 
were published in that work, partly at the time, 
and partly after his death. Some of these pieces 
had, however, appeared before, being taken from 
the Independent Reflector and his other publica- 
tions, and they will not therefore demand our par- 
ticular notice at this time.* 

• Governor Livingston's contributions to the American Mu- 
seum, according to information very obligingly communicated to 
me by Mr. Carey, may be found in the volumes and under the 
pages following of the American Museum. 
Vol. v. p. 100, 295, 371. 
" viii. " 176, 233, 254. 
" ix. " 9, 72, 143, 241. 
" X. ^' 17, 68, 209, 210, 211. 
In the Appendix to vol. viii. p. 17, I find the following verses 
to his memory, 

" O ! frail mortality, behold thy doom ! 
Heroes and sages crowd the narrow tomb, — 



■WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 429 

The following letter from Hamilton to Governor 
Livingston is strikingly illustrative of the adroit- 
ness and statesmanlike address mingled with the 
more chivalric qualities of that great man. 

« August 29th, 1788. 
" Dear Sir, 
" We are informed here, that there is some pro- 
babihty that your Legislature will instruct your 
delegates to vote for Philadelphia, as the place of 
the meeting of the first Congress under the new 
government. I presume this information can hardly 
be well founded, as upon my calculations there is 
not a State in the union so much interested in having 
the temporary residence at New-York, as New- 
Jersey. As between Philadelphia and New- York, 
1 am mistaken if a greater proportion of your 
State will not be benefited by having the seat of 
the government at the latter than at the former 
place. If at the latter too, its exposed and 
eccentric position will necessitate the early es- 
tablishment of a permanent seat; and in pass- 
ing south, it is highly probable the government 
would light upon the Delaware in New-Jersey. 



The vet'ran Putnam bows his laurell'd head, 
And beckons sages to the mighty dead. 
Frankhn obeys and treads the shadowy shore. 
And the good Livingston is now no more. 
His mighty soul, unwilHng to remain, 
Elated, rush'd to join th' illustrious train." 



430 THE LIFE OP 

The northern States do not wish to increase 
Pennsylvania by an accession of all the wealth and 
population of the Foederal city. Pennsylvania her- 
self, when not seduced by immediate possession^ will be 
glad to concur in a situation on the Jersey side of 
the Delaware. Here are at once a majority of the 
States ; but place the government once down in 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will of course hold 
fast; the State of Delaware will do the same. 
All the States south, looking forward to the time 
when the balance of population will enable them 
to carry the government farther south (say to .the 
Potomac), and being accommodated in the mean 
time as well as they wish, will concur in no change. 
The government, from the delay, will take root in 
Philadelphia, and Jersey will loose all prospect of 
the Fcederal city within he r hmits. These appear to 
me calculations so obvious, that I cannot persuade 
myself New-Jersey will so much oversee her inter- 
est as to fall in the present instance in the snares 
of Pennsylvania. 

w With the sincerest respect and regard, 
« 1 remain, dear sir, your obedient servant, 

" A. Hamilton. 

How much is it to be regretted that the petty 
State jealousies brought to bear upon this ques- 
tion could not have been overruled by a sense of 
common advantage, and that the Federal metrop- 
olis could not have been identified with either of 
our large commercial cities. Of what moment 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTOjr. 431 

are a few miles nearer to the centre in an empire 
alrt.'ady stri<lini; t«)war(Is the Rocky Mountains ? 
The injurious cllcct apprelicnded from contact 
with a wealthy city, has been ill-exchanj»ed for 
those unpolished and hcentious modes of life which 
necessarily result from the want of a hi^h and 
permanent tribunal of public o[)inion : and we have 
been forced into expenses unwarranteti by our in- 
stitutions, and wholly disproportionate to any thing 
which we see around us« by the wild scheme of 
foundmjT a city to curry into effect a government. 

In this year tin? faculty t>f Vale College, at their 
annual commencement, conferred u{K)n Governor 
Livingston the degree of Doctor of Laws, ** as a 
testimony," says President Stiles in his letter of 
the 1 7th November, *♦ of their high respect for 
your literary and political merit, and the distin- 
guished honour to which your great abilities and 
fervent patriotism have elevated you, both in the 
republic of h'lters and in political life." It will 
be reiiieiiibered, that forty years ago the honours 
conferred by literary institutions were less widely 
distributed, and conveyed hiulier distinctions than 
at present. .\t the election for governor in f)cto- 
ber, Livingston again received a grateful tribute 
of respect and alVection in an uiMinimous vote. 
Shortly aller this, at the moment he was leaving 
Princeton, he suffered a serious injury !)y the break- 
ing of the high steps, then used to enter the stage 
wagons, and this *• imj)ar congressus," as he terms 
it in one of his letters, *• of the bones of an old 



432 THE LIFE OF 

man with an iron-bound wheel," affected his health 
during the remainder of his hfe. 

Governor Livingston was about this time talked 
of by some of his friends, both in New-York and 
New-Jersey, as a candidate for the Vice-Presi- 
dency of the United States, under the new gov- 
ernment. John Mehelm, who had been long a 
member of the Legislature, and at one time speaker 
of the Assembly, thus writes to him under date of 
the 20th February, 1789. " It is said your Excel- 
lency had the votes of this State for the Vice-Pres- 
idency, and 1 do not know whether to be pleased 
or displeased with it. If you was not governor of 
Jersey, 1 should heartily acquiesce in your having 
the votes of the thirteen States for that appoint- 
ment." Thus the very affection of his fellow-citi- 
zens might have deprived him of the votes upon 
which he could be supposed able with certainty to 
count. The following letter, written about this 
time by one of the prominent men of the Con- 
gress of 1776, may be read with interest. 

" TO GOVERNOR LIVINGSTON. 

" Virginia, February 16th, 1789. 
" My dear Sir, 
" The friendship you formerly honoured me with, 
and the confidence I still have in it, will I hope ex- 
cuse me to you, for asking the favour of you to 
assist me with your interest, with the senatorial 
delegates of your State in Congress, for the ap- 
pointment of naval officer for the district of Nor- 
folk and Portsmouth in this State. The being a 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 433 

placeman is a line I never expected to walk in, but 
the distresses brought on me by the ravages and 
plunderings of the British, have reduced me so low 
that some prop is necessary, for the comfort of a 
numerous and valuable family. That I have some 
claims on the American States, you, my friend, 
know, as many of my long services were familiar 
to you ; which services, together with my strong 
attachment to the American cause after my return 
from Congress, marked me out as a peculiar ob- 
ject of British vengeance; and which they did not 
fail to execute in the most outrageous manner, 
when the fortune of war put my whole estate in 
their power. I take the liberty to enclose you a 
letter to the gentlemen, which you'll be so obliging 
as to forward to them in any manner you shall 
please. 

" I have tlie honour to be, with the most perfect 
sentiments of friendship and esteem, dear sir, your 
Excellency's most obedient and humble servant, 

"Benj. Harrison. 

In the summer of the year 1789, the disorders 
of Mrs. Livingston, which had for several years 
previous assumed a more and more threatening 
complexion, terminated fatally. She died on the 
17th July. Her simple and unpretending charac- 
ter furnishes scanty materials for history ; but her 
sound sense, her devotion to her husband, and 
sympathy in all his pursuits, and her maternal ten- 
derness, singularly free from every tincture of self- 

1 1 I 



434 THE LIFE OF 

ishness, claim more than a passing notice. Her 
death, although it might have been for some time 
expected, was a severe shock to her children, and 
even more so to her husband. The family letters, 
written about this period, show that his grief at 
this separation from her who had shared in all the 
anxieties of a long and toilsome life continued un- 
abated, and that it accelerated the progress of his 
own disease. For the year following, his spirits 
flagged, and a marked difference was perceptible 
in his temper. It appeared chastened and sub- 
dued. What the vicissitudes of fifty years had not 
effected, heartfelt sorrow at one stroke accom- 
plished, and he scarcely on any subsequent occa- 
sion manifested that irritability which, as I have 
often had occasion to say, was a constituent of his 
character. 

At the election in the fall of this year, Abraham 
Clark, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, and at this time a leading anti- 
federalist, was put up as the rival candidate ; but 
Governor Livingston was, as usual, re-elected.* It 



* Abraham Clark, originally I believe a surveyor, was, it is 
said, a man of strong, shrewd mind. He was for a long time 
connected with the State or Federal government ; but is perhaps, 
best known, at least in his own State, by the act which he intro- 
duced into the New- Jersey Legislature about this time, to do away 
or simplify the English legal technicalities, and commonly called 
" Clark's Practice-Law." It was a favourite scheme with him. 
" If it succeeds," he said, " it will tear off the ruffles from the 
lawyers' wrists." 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 435 

was for the last time, but no political opposition or 
intrigue was destined to remove him from the 
office which he seemed to hold by the tenure of his 
life alone. "Hoc sacrum plane et insigne est," 
says Pliny,* speaking of the office of augur, " quod 
non adimitur viventi." 

On the 12th of June, 1790, Governor Livingston 
returned from Amboy to Elizabethtown, complain- 
ing of an oppression on his breast, which soon 
afterwards proved to be the dropsy, attended by a 
severe cough. Doctor Bard, of New-York, was 
called in; the aid of medicine, however, only 
served to prolong his sufferings a few days. His 
disorder was of a peculiarly harassing character, 
but he bore it with a patience which the excita- 
bility of his temper would not have given reason 
to expect. That religion, which when invoked 
truly is never invoked in vain, sent down her 
messengers of peace to tranquillize these trying 
moments. The following extracts from letters 
written about this time, with the greatest facilities 
of observation, will convey the best idea of the 
closing portion of his life. 

" The more 1 reflect on the patience and forti- 
tude with which he supported his last illness, the 
more I am astonished at it; he never uttered a 
complaining word : the most he ever said, was, ' 1 
can't hold it long if 1 do not get reUef I have 

* Ep. iv. 8. 



436 THE LIFE OF 

often reflected on a line of his, written in early 
life. :: 

' For Ij who know to live, would never fear to die.^* 

When they would tell him how much better he 
looked, ' A strange misunderstanding between the 
looks and feelings,' he would say: he often said 
'God's will be done!' and would tell me, I had 
done all I could ; I must leave the event to Provi- 
dence. He supported his illness with uncommon 

patience and resignation : the last day of his life, 
I asked him if he was in much pain ; he answered, 
' No, none at all' Whenever we asked how he 
felt, the answer was 'Weak, very weak.' The 
cough left him a considerable time before his 
death ; after which he could lie in bed, and that 
was a great relief; before that period he sat 
night and day in the easy chair." 

" Who," says Fox, " so well endures any of the 
various ills that flesh is heir to; who so peacefully 
resigns the existence which we hold but in depend- 
ence and on trust from our Creator, Lord, and 
Judge; who so wisely, and usefully, and happily 
employs the longest and most prosperous life, as he 
who acts on lessons of prudence — whose reason 
rusts not in neglect, nor is perverted by abuse — who 
acquires the habitual control of his passions — in 
whose understanding the great truths of religion 

* Philosophic Solitude. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 437 

are enshrined, and in whose heart and Ufe they bear 
their fruits of righteousness and peace ? He 
really best enjoys what is good here, and he lays 
up an unfailing security against the time to come, 
by which, when mortality flits from his grasp, he 
lays hold on the true and everlasting hfe."* 

The painful scene was at length closed; on 
Sunday, the 25th of July, 1790, Governor Living- 
ston died. His remains were interred at Ehzabeth- 
town with those of his wife, and in the course of 
the following winter, were removed to the vault of 
their son Brockholst, in New-York. William 
Paterson succeeded Livingston in his office, while 
not a dissenting voice was heard throughout New- 
Jersey to the tribute of respect, regret, and 
sympathy offered to the memory of their deceased 
chief-magistrate. 

The period of Governor Livingston's death was 
fortunate for himself He Hved long enough to 
see the last seal set to the independence of the 
country in its new constitution, and the guidance 
of its energies in the hands of the individual whom 
he most esteemed. He did not live to see the 

* Sermon preached at the Unitarian Chapel, Parliament Court, 
16th February, 1823, by W. J. Fox. I cannot resist the temp- 
tation to offer ray humble tribute of respect to the writing and 
preaching of this eminent man ; it is not necessary to agree with 
him in his speculative views, to admire the expansion of his in- 
tellect, the enlargement of his benevolence, his ardent piety, and 
the vigor and fervor of his eloquence. 



438 ^ THE LIFE OF 

unprecedented violence of that storm which so 
long convulsed the republic, rending asunder old 
friendships, uprooting reputations apparently the 
best founded, and which would probably have 
swept him from the eminence, that, as it was, he 
occupied till the time of his death. He died in 
possession of all the honors he had received; — 
all it was in the power of the State to bestow, and 
with a character unsullied, even by the breath of 
faction. 

The narrative portion of this memoir is now 
closed; and in completing my task by grouping to- 
gether in the few pages that now remain, the promi- 
nent traits of Livingston's character, I shall en- 
deavour to confine myself to a mention of those 
attributes, the evidence of which may be found in 
what has been already presented to the reader. 

Active life does not appear to have been Liv- 
ingston's preference, although it is true that in 
his youth he showed more taste for the turmoil of 
contest and controversy than he afterwards exhib- 
ited. Necessity drove him into the bustle of a 
profession, and at the moment when he intended 
apparently to withdraw himself altogether from pub- 
lic life, the revolution broke out. In the contest 
that followed, he would have wanted virtue that 
had remained idle ; and the demand for talent, hon- 
esty, and energy soon forced the subject of this 
memoir to the conspicuous station which he so 
long filled. But all his tastes were pure, simple, 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 439 

and averse to the tumult of the crowd. His hbrary 
within doors, and his fishing-rod or spade without, 
occupied his leisure. 

Under the colonial government, we have seen 
Livingston the strenuous opponent of abuse of 
power ; after the revolution, he adapted himself 
with equal promptitude and success to the part he 
was called upon to perform. He belonged strictly 
to that class of men who may with equal propriety 
be called either the parents or the children of the 
revolution — the first by their precepts and example 
to bring about the change, and the most sedulous 
in discharging the new and arduous duties imposed 
by that change. It is not too much to say that 
few could have suppHed Mr. Livingston's place in 
New-Jersey during the first years of the war. The 
faith of the people, harassed by the inroads of the 
enemy on one side, and by the pecuniary demands 
of their own government on the other, wavered ; 
but the moral qualities of their first governor com- 
manded their afiection and respect, more perhaps 
than even his intellectual superiority, and during 
the whole struggle he was the leader of the whig 
party in that State. 

Governor Livingston took office with apparently 
but one prominent object : the good of the country. 
He nearly abandoned all attention to his private 
aflfairs. " My family," he says in November, 1780, 
" for these four years past have not had fourteen 
days of my assistance." " My friends in Philadel- 
phia," he writes to his daughter in February, 178], 



440 THE LIFE OF 

" are greatly mistaken if they think that the recess 
of the Assembly is recess to me." Though the 
very antipode of a demagogue, with no desire and 
evincing perhaps at critical moments too scrupu- 
lous a hesitation to stretch his power beyond its 
just limits, he so exerted himself as to win the af- 
fection, and on most occasions, draw forth the 
whole disposable strength of his State. " If any 
necessity," he says in a letter to F. L. Lee, of the 
7th January, 1778, " demands any measures con- 
trary to the law, I hope those measures will be ex- 
ecuted by officers who never have been sworn to 
act agreeable to it." Like other prominent men 
of the day, he made great personal sacrifices in 
the common cause. His house was several times 
attacked, and once partially pillaged; his family 
were repeatedly in the power of an insolent, if not 
brutal soldiery, and the constant rumors of at- 
tacks upon his own person disturbed his quiet. 
His fortune was so much impaired by the opera- 
tion of the depreciated currency, as to be reduced 
to a third of what it was when he went into the 
State of ISew-Jersey ; and had it not been for the 
extensive lands inherited from his father, he must 
have left to his children scarcely any other estate 
than that of his reputation. 

The prominent feature of Mr. Livingston's char- 
acter appears to have been truth, taken in its 
widest and most ennobling sense — that truth which 
enabled him to form a just conception of the vari- 
ous and harassing duties imposed upon him, and 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 441 

at the same time gave him the power to execute 
them rightly. 

His impartiahty in the exercise of his office was 
of the most absokite character. His straight-for- 
ward independence neither bent before the turbu- 
lence of public, nor yielded to the blandishments 
of private life. It would be, 1 believe, impossible 
to meet with a single instance in which the con- 
stant importunities by which he was urged to make 
exceptions to his estabhshed rules, on the subject 
of passes, or the transportation of goods across 
the line, had the least effect. On this point, his 
letter-books furnish abundant proof No friend- 
ship could divert or mislead him from a line of 
duty once laid down for himself His nearest 
relatives could expect no greater indulgence than 
the most indifferent stranger might claim. In his 
punishments, though generally long delayed, and 
always unwillingly infficted, he was equally un- 
biased by any personal motive. 

These qualities sprang from that love of reli- 
gion which unostentatiously, but intimately, was 
incorporated with his whole character. With this 
also was associated that charity, " the vertical top 
of all religion,"* which is its natural growth, and 
when unchecked by false teaching, or unfortunate 
experience, its inseparable attendant. Satisfied of 
the sincerity and correctness of his own faith and 
principles, he laid little stress upon the various and 

* Jeremy Taylor. 
K K K 



442 THE LIFE OF 

adverse tenets of others. The harshness of his 
early writings, which would appear to form an ex- 
ception to this, has been sufficiently accounted for 
in its proper place. His religious creed was inter- 
woven with his political belief, and he contended 
no less for civil than religious liberty. Even towards 
the Quakers, who, by a narrow construction of a 
benevolent dogma, held themselves bound to keep 
aloof from that struggle, in which he knew of no 
excuse for inactivity, he showed a wise and tolerant 
spirit. He strictly enforced the laws to which they 
were obnoxious, regarding them, however, not as 
a religious sect, but as obstructing the administra- 
tion, and by his correspondence with more than one 
of their persuasion, endeavoured so far as lay in 
his power to remove their scruples, and to win their 
attachment to the government. 

We have seen the animosity expressed by Liv- 
ingston towards the British during the war, but 
the hostile feelings and bitter tone ceased with 
their cause. The case of Mr. Kempe shows 
how speedily he forgot national wrongs in his 
desire to benefit individuals. He appears indeed 
always to have been ready to make those sacrifices 
of his time, at the demand of private persons, for 
refusing which, a disposition less complying would 
have easily found excuse in the absorbing claims 
of his office. It is worthy of notice, that when 
after the peace, Doctor Chandler returned to 
Elizabethtown, worn down by age and disease, 
these two antagonists, who for the third of a 
century had been ranged on opposite sides of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 443 

all the great questions which had agitated the 
world, and who for a part of that time had been 
personal opponents, were in the habit of visiting 
each other, in the most unembarrassed and cordial 
manner.* 

Straitened as Mr. Livingston was in his circum- 
stances during the war, he at all times pushed his 
generosity to the limit of prudence. In a letter 
to his brother, of September, 1785, speaking of an 
unexpected claim presented by the latter, which 
Livingston shows him could not be sustained, 
either at law or in chancery, he goes on to say, 
" But there is, my dear brother, a better tribunal 
than either of these, at which I hope that both 
you and I may ever regulate our conduct, and that 
is the heart of an honest man. According to that, 
I think I ought to make you an equitable allow- 
ance." Although very economical in his own 
habits, he was inexcusibly careless in money 
transactions ; and it is mentioned as an instance of 
his inattention to these matters, that when his 
daughter left home in the fall, to remain in New- 
York till spring, he gave her a half Joe (eight dol- 
lars) to defray her winter expenses. Mrs. Living- 
ston was always called upon to rectify these and 
similar inadvertencies, for which her accurate and 
methodical habits of mind well qualified her. 

Livingston appears to have had but little vanity, 
either as a private or public man. His real learn- 
ing and the quaint style of the day, sometimes 

* Chandler died in July, 1790. Allen's Biog. Diet. 



444 THE LIFE OF 

give his writings an air of formality, which might 
be mistaken for pedantry ; but on a close examina- 
tion, his character bears few, if any traces of 
affectation. His conversation was entirely free 
of egotism. As governor, he despised, and alto- 
gether threw off the state, which his predecessors 
under the crown had assumed, and thus early 
adapted himself to the rapidly changing tastes of 
the people. Nor does this appear to have sprung 
so much from necessity as inclination. He was 
plain and indifferent, almost to slovenliness, in his 
dress. He was accustomed to work in his garden 
like a common laborer; and there is an anec- 
dote related of a Jerseyman who came to see him 
for the first time, on business, and was told by a 
person occupied with a spade, and looking very 
like a gardener, that he should be called. The 
applicant seated himself in the parlor, and when 
the governor entered, was somewhat surprised to 
find that the gardener was, with the addition of 
only a coat, the high dignitary whom he had 
ventured to approach. The simphcity and con- 
sistency of his character struck the republican 
mind of Brissot, who passed through New-Jersey 
in 1788. " You may have an idea," he says to his 
correspondent, " of this respectable man, who is 
at once a writer, a governor, and a ploughman, on 
learning that he takes pride in calling himself a 
New-Jersey farmer."* 

* Brissot's Travels, Trans. Letter VI. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 445 

In his family, Livingston was a fond husband, 
and a generous father, ready at all times to make 
every sacrifice which the welfare of his children 
demanded ; while at the same time it is not to be 
denied that a temper, originally irritable, and 
rendered more so by the difficulties and responsi- 
bility of his situation, was sometimes less restrained 
in his domestic circle, than where it was checked 
by the presence of strangers. An extreme sensi- 
tiveness to noise ; an occasional unwillingness to 
converse when not excited by society; and a 
sensibihty more quickly manifested with regard to 
trifling vexations than serious evils, sometimes 
threw a gloom over the fireside of Liberty Hall : 
but these original defects of temper, which not 
even his habitual religious feeling could thoroughly 
eradicate, were all forgotten by his family in their 
sense of his affection, generosity, and sympathy 
in their happiness. " Nam Phasdro nihil elegantius, 
nihil humanius, sed stomachabatur senex, si quid 
asperius dixeram."* The same inherent nervous- 
ness may be discerned in his timidity on the 
water; and perhaps in his susceptibility on the 
subject of the attempts to waylay him. No want 
of moral courage or firmness can, however, be 
traced in his actions ; these sallies of temper were 
never allowed to influence his conduct. The 
drafts of his answers to pertinacious applicants, 

* Cic. Nat. Deor. i. 33. 



446 THE LIFE OF 

for passes or other improper privileges, exhibit 
striking, and sometimes laughable discrepancies 
between the first outbreak of his petulance at 
being obliged to repeat an answer, already in 
more than one shape repeatedly given, and the 
alterations made in cooler moments. 

Governor Livingston's temper was usually play- 
ful — he was extremely fond of children, and took 
dehght in making their amusements his own. 
In a letter to his son-in-law, Mr. Ridley (10th 
March, 1788), speaking of a family visit, which he 
wishes his children and grandchildren to make 
him, he says — " Suppose in reality that you and 

, and , and Mr. and Mrs. Jay, and 

; should come to Liberty Hall next cherry- 
time ; why, then, what with my romping with some 
upon the piazzy, and shooting robbins with others 
out of the mazzard-trees, and talking and walk- 
ing with the elder boys and girls, and their fathers 
and mothers round the table, I pertest (as some 
ladies say), that 1 would not exchange such a 
scene of happiness for any gratification of the 
Grand Seignior." It is rare that the age of sixty- 
five retains so well the fresh and flexible sympa- 
thies of youth. 

« Of children," says Governor Livingston, " I 
have had to the number of these United States." 
Six died during his life time. He was considera- 
bly above the middle stature, and in early life, so 
very thin as to receive from some female wit of 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 447 

New- York, perhaps in allusion to his satirical dis- 
position, the nickname of the " whipping-post." 
In later years he acquired a more dignified corpu- 
lency. Speaking of himself, in the language of 
one of his opponents in the American Whig (176S), 
he says, " The Whig is along-nosed, long-chinned, 
ugly-looking fellow." The profile at the beginning 
of this volume corroborates this candid confes- 
sion. 

The character of Governor Livingston's writings 
has been sufficiently discussed. Of his scholarship, 
it may be said that it was distinguished in days when 
scholarship was more common. Greek he aban- 
doned early in life, but of the Latin he retained a 
familiar knowledge ; the French and Dutch he 
read with great facility, writing them both with 
considerable ease, though without elegance. With 
the literature of his own language, he was inti- 
mately acquainted. In polemical divinity, a study 
now fallen into considerable disrepute, he was also 
well read. His religious taste and readings tinge 
most of his literary productions, which often bor- 
row point and eloquence from the rich treasure- 
house of scriptural allusions and quotations. His 
skill in literature was not confined to the closet or 
his own gratification ; we have seen it rendering 
more effective his exertions directed to Holland ; 
and in his own country, he was active in supplying 
the want of instruction in the different States, to 
do which he was more than once requested ; while 
at the same time as trustee ex-ofRcio of Princeton 



448 THE LIFE OF 

and Rutgers Colleges,* he exercised a supervision 
over the literary interests of New-Jersey.f 

My task is here completed, and I have now fin- 
ished such a Memoir of Governor Livingston as 
the distance of time and my scanty materials have 
left it possible to compile. I do not allow myself 
to believe that it will possess sufficient interest to 
recommend itself to the mass of the reading pub- 
lic. I shall be satisfied, as I have already said, if 
this effort to give a more accurate idea of the 
services of one of the agents of the revolution 
prove acceptable to those who, whether from the 
ties of blood, or a greater familiarity with the his- 
tory of that period, may be not altogether indiffer- 
ent to such an attempt. 

* I am not certain as to this with regard to the later insti- 
tution. 

t The following is a list of Governor Livingston's works, ac- 
cording to their dates. 

The Art of Pleasing. 

Philosophic Solitude, 1747. 

The Independent Reflector, 1752-53. 

The Watch Tower, 1754-55. 

Digest of N. Y. Laws, 1752-63. 

Review of Military Operations, &c., 1756. 

Eulogium on Rev. Aaron Burr, 1757. 

Essays under the title of The Sentinel, 1765. 

Letter to Bishop of LlandafT, 1767. 

The American Whig, 1768-69. 

Lieut. Governor Colden's Soliloquy, 1770. 

Essays under the signatures of Hortentiiis, Scipio, and the title 
of Primitive Whig, in the New- Jersey Gazette, 1777-86. 

Essays in the American Museum, 1788-90. 



WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. 449 

In drawing up this narrative, 1 have endeavoured 
to leave nothing to conjecture, with the view of 
adding to the reputation of the subject of it. I 
have put no material fact out of sight, nor laid 
stress upon any thing but what I have considered 
certain. In sketching his character, I am not 
aware that I have palliated any fault, or magnified 
any virtue, for the purpose of gratifying those more 
immediately interested in his reputation ; and I have 
endeavoured to prevent the more excusable mo- 
tive of personal partiality from infusing its bias into 
this work. With the same desire to avoid exag- 
geration which has guided me throughout, I be- 
lieve that truth is not violated by closing this vol- 
ume in the words with which it opens, applying to 
William Livingston, with but a trifling alteration, 
the high eulogium of the Roman historian — " citi- 
zen, senator, husband, father, friend ; equal in all 
the stations of life, contemning riches, pertinacious 
in well-doing, unmoved by fear." 



L LL 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



PACE 99. 



The scheme referred to by Mr. Livingston in this letter for 
uniting the colonies fell through, as is well known. Although he 
does not appear to have had any connexion with it, the subject 
is of so much interest in relation to the history of the country, 
that no apology is necessary for inserting here three letters, which 
convey more accurate information respecting it than is anywhere 
to be found. They are from the large collection of manuscripts 
in the possession of our Historical Society, the value of which is 
far too little known. 

The two first are in the hand-writing of a clerk, and seem to 
have been copied about the time they bear date. The third, 
%vhich sufficiently authenticates them, is in the peculiar auto- 
graph of Golden, and not to be mistaken. 

The first is from Franklin to James Alexander, an eminent 
lawyer of New- York, for some notices of whom see Chapter II. 
of this volume. 

" Short hints towards a scheme for uniting the Northern colonies 
"a governour general, 

" To be appointed by the king. 

" To be a military man. 

" To have a salary from the crown. 

" To have a negation on all acts of the Grand Council, and 
carry into execution Avhatever is agreed on by him and that 
Council. 

M MM 



2 APPENDIX. 

" GRAND COUNCIL. 

" One member to be chosen by the Assembly of each of the 
smaller colonies, and two or more by each of the larger, in pro- 
portion to the sums they pay yearly into the general treasury. 

" members' pay. 
" shillings sterling per diem, during their sitting, and mile- 
age for travelling expenses. 

" PLACE AND TIME OF MEETING. 

" To meet times in every year, at the capitol of each col- 
ony, in course, unless particular circumstances and emergen- 
cies require more frequent meetings, and alteration in the course 
of places. The governour-general to judge of those circum- 
stances, &c,, and call by his writts. 

" GENERAL TREASURY. 

" Its fund, an excise on strong liquors, pretty equally drank in 

the colonies, or duty on liquor imported, or shillings on 

each licence of publick house, or excise on superfluities, as tea, 
&c. &c. All which would pay in some proportion to the present 
Avealth of each colony, and encrease as that wealth encreases, 
and prevent disputes about the inequality of quotas. To be col- 
lected in each colony and lodged in their treasury, to be ready for 
the payment of orders issuing from the governour-general, and 
grand council jointly. 

" DUTY AND POWER OF THE GOVERNOUR-GENERAL AND GRAND 
COUNCIL. 

" To order all Indian treaties. Make all Indian purchases not 
Avithin proprietary grants. Make and support new settlements, 
by building forts, raising and paying soldiers to garison the 
forts, defend the frontiers, and annoy the ennemy. Equip grand 
vessels to scour the coasts from privateers in time of war, and 
protect the trade, and every thing that shall be found necessary 
for the defence and support of the colonies in general, and in- 
creasing and extending their settlements, &c. 

" For the expence, they may draw on the fund in the treasury 
of any colony. 



APPENDIX. J 

"MANNER OF FORMING THIS UNION. 

" The scheme being first well considered, corrected, and im- 
proved by the commissioners at Albany, to be sent home, and an 
act of Parliament obtained for establishing it. 

"New-York, June 8, 1754. 
" Mr. Alexander is requested to peruse these hints, and make 
such remarks in correcting or improving the scheme, and send 
the paper with such remarks to Dr. Golden for his sentiments, 
who is desired to forward the whole to Albany, to their 

" Very humble servant, 

"B. Franklin." 

The next letter is from Alexander, and apparently (though the 
address is wanting) to Dr. Cadwallader Golden, afterwards lieuten- 
ant-governor of the colony. It is evidently misdated, probably by 
the blunder of the copyist, and should be of June instead of May. 

" New- York, May 9th, 1754. 
«'Dear Sir, 

"I communicated yours of May 16th and 28th, and my an- 
swers to Mr. Pownal, Mr. Peeters, and Mr. Franklin. 

" Before I communicated them to Mr. Pownal, he had thought 
of forewith building one vessel of force, and sundry small ves- 
sels to attend her, to prevent the boarding of the larger by can- 
noes and pereagoes, upon Lake Ontario, and on the many good 
consequences of that scheme — when I told him you had thought 
on nearly the same thing, which introduced the communicating 
them to him. 

" I had some conversation with Mr. Franklin ■ and Mr. Pee- 
ters, as to the uniting the colonies, and the difficulties thereof by 
effecting our liberties on the one hand, or being ineffectual on 
the other. Whereon Mr. Franklin promised to set down some 
hints of a scheme that he thought might do, which accordingly 
he sent to me to be transmitted to you, and it's enclosed. 

"To me, it seems exireamly well digested, and at first sight 
avoids many difficulties that had occurred to me. 

" Some difficulties still remain. For example, there cannot be 



4 APPENDIX. 

• 

found men tolerably well skilled in warlike affairs to be chosen 
for the Grand Council, and there's danger in communicating to 
them the schemes to be put in execution, for fear of a discovery 
to the enemy — whether this may not be in some measure reme- 
died by a council of state, of a few persons to be chosen by the 
Grand Council at their stated meetings, which council of state to 
be allways attending the governour-general, and with him to digest 
beforehand all matters to be laid before the next Grand Council, 
and only the general, but not the particular, plans of operation. 

" That the governour-general and that council of state issue 
orders for the payment of monies, so far as the Grand Council have 
beforehand agreed may be issued for any general plan to be exe- 
cuted. That the governour-general and council of state at every 
meeting of the Grand Council lay before them their accounts and 
transactions since the last meeting, at least so much of their trans- 
actions as is safe to be made publick. This council of state to be 
something like that of the United Provinces, and the Grand Coun- 
cil to resemble the States General. 

" That the capacity and ability of the persons to be chosen 
of the council of state and Grand Council, be their only qualifi- 
cations, whether members of the respective bodies that chuse them 
or not. Tliat the Grand Council, with the governour-general, have 
power to encrease, but not to decrease the duties laid by act of 
Parliament, and have power to issue bills of credit, on emergen- 
cies, to be sunk by the encreased funds, bearing a small interest, 
but not to be tenders. I am, dear sir, 

" Your most obedient, and most humble servant, 

"Ja. Alexander." 

The following is written from Colden's country-seat, near New- 
York, and, as I have already said, in his handwriting, though not 
signed by him. 

" TO BENJ'n franklin, esq. at ALBANY. 

" Coldingham, June 20th, 1754. 
"Sir, 
" I inclose the papers which I received from Mr. Alexander, to 
be conveyed to you by the first opportunity to Albany. You 



APPENDIX. a 

win find that I make remarks with that freedom which I believe you 
expect from me, that in case you find any weight in any of them, 
you may make your scheme more perfect, by avoiding reasonable 
exceptions to it, and have the pleasure of adding this to the many 
other well received schemes which you have formed for the benefit 
of your country. I hope, in your return home from Albany, you 
may have time to stop a day or two at my house, as you seldom 
can miss a passage from hence to New- York, if it should be in- 
convenient for your sloop to wait so long. By this you will 
give a very great pleasure to * * * 

" Remarks on short liints towards a scheme for uniting the 
northern colonies. 

" GOVERNOXJR-GENERAL. 

" It seems agreed on all hands that something is necessary to be 
don for uniting the colonies in their mutual defence, and it seems 
to be likewise agreed that it can only be don effectually by act 
of Parliament. For this reason I suppose that the necessary 
funds for carrying it into execution, in pursuance of the ends 
proposed by it, cannot be otherwise obtained. If it were thought 
that the Assemblies of the several colonies may agree to lay the 
same duties, and apply them to the general defence and security 
of all the colonies, no need of an act of Parliament. 

" Qu. Which best for the colonies ; by Parliament, or'by the 
several Assemblies ? 

" The king's ministers, so long since as the year '23, or '24, had 
thoughts of sending over a governour-general of all the colonies, 
and the Earl of Stairs was proposed as a fit person. It is pro- 
bable, the want of a suitable support of the dignity of that ofiice 
prevented that scheme's being carried into execution, and that 
the ministry and people of England think that this charge ought 
to be born by the colonies. 

" GRAND COUNCIL. 

" Qu. Is the Grand Council, with the governour-general, to have 
a legislative authority ? If only an executive power, objections 
may be made to their being elective. It would be in a great 
measure a change of the constitution, to which I suspect the 



O APPENDIX. 

crown will not consent. We see the inconveniences attending 
the present constitution, and remedies may be found without 
changeing it, but we cannot foresee what may be the conse- 
quences of a change in it. If the Grand Council be elected for a 
short time, steady measures cannot be pursued. If elected for 
a long time, and not removeable by the crown, they may become 
dangerous. Are they to have a negative on the acts of the gov- 
ernour-general ? It is to be considered that England will keep 
their colonies, as far as they can, dependent on them, and this 
view is to be preserved in all schemes to which the king's con- 
sent is necessary. 

" PLACE AND TIME OF MEETING. 

" It may be thought dangerous to have fixed meetings of the 
Grand Council, and all the colonies at certain times and places. 
It is a privilege which the Parliament has not, nor the privy 
council, and may be thought destructive of the constitution. 

" GENERAL TREASURY. 

" Some estimate ought to be made of the produce which may 
be reasonably expected from the funds proposed to be raised by 
duties on liquors, &c., to see whether it will be sufficient for the 
ends proposed. This I think may be done from the custom-houses 
in the most considerable places for trade in the colonies. 

" MANNER OF FORMING THE UNION. 

" No doubt any private person may, in a proper manner, make 
any proposals which he thinks for the public benefite ; but if they 
are to be made by the commissioners of the several colonies, 
who now meet at Albany, it may be presumed that they speak 
the sense of their constituents. What authority have they to do 
this 1 I know of none from either the Council or Assembly of 
New-York. 

" However, these things may be properly talkt of in conversa- 
tion among the commissioners for further information, and in or- 
der to induce the several Assemblies to give proper powers to 
commissioners to meet afterwards for this purpose." 



APPENDIX. 



PAGE 171. 



SIR GUY CARLETON TO GOV. LIVINGSTON. 

"Head-quarters, New- York, 7ih May, 1782. 
« Sir, 

" Colonel Livingston will have the pleasure of placing this 
letter in your Excellency's hands. His enlargement, sir, has 
been the first act of my command, being desirous, if war 
must prevail, to render its evils as light as possible to individuals. 

" It would be as difficult as it seems useless to trace from what 
first injuries those acts of retaliation, public or private, which 
have lately passed, are derived ; but it is highly important that 
the practice itself should be brought to the most speedy conclu- 
sion, without which we shall all be involved in one common dis- 
honour. Thus impressed, I cannot help earnestly wishing that 
you may find yourself disposed to recommend this point, which 
humanity so much requires, to the deliberations of your Assembly. 
The acts to which I allude having passed in your province, and I, 
for my part, shall gladly meet you upon the ground of any regu- 
lation, which may take from us this reproach ; and if any recip- 
rocal engagement shall be required of me, I shall be ready to 
adopt any measures which may be thought effectual to this end, 
fully sensible that acts of private passion and resentment, though 
productive of much unnecessary evil, contribute nothing to public 
and general decisions. What I have here proposed, sir, are the 
arrangements of war ; but I shall be truly happy if any pacifica- 
tion can be obtained, which may be equally safe and honourable 
to all. 

" I transmit herewith certain papers which will show your 
Excellency the disposition of the government and people of 
Great Britain. From the facts which your Excellency will 
thence collect, you may judge what further consequences must 
speedily follow. I have the honour to be, with much respect, 
" Your Excellency's most obedient servant, 

(Signed) " Guy Carleton." 

THE END. 



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